Book Review – J K Rowling – Very Good Lives

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2015 – Sphere Books The text of a short lecture given to students at Harvard University by the Harry Potter author. She gives a moving insight into the motives and inspiration for her work, touching on two themes; 1/. Coming to terms with failure so you can keep going 2/. Maximising your own creative imagination. Rowling talks of her family as poor but never destitute or homeless. Her parents hoped that J K would use her own university education to pursue a vocational career and dismissed her literary ambitions as frivolous, and unlikely to amount to anything. She studied classical literature and stayed glued to her dream regardless, with now well known results. Rowling worked for Amnesty International, learning a great deal about human cruelty and torture of other people, but also how many were prepared to help the needy of the World even if they never knew them personally. She saw how a simple gesture of caring and letters from ordinary people can change fate. It is this lesson she puts home to he students listening to her talk, and to her readers. Keep moving, keep aware that you make a difference just by being in the World. Her talk is short – reading it takes about half an hour. It is good humoured and not intellectually taxing. The talk undoubtedly drew more attention due to her more famous work, but that is no bad thing at all. Arthur Chappell