New Harry Potter Announced, NHS Funding Increase Expected
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Yesterday, J.K. Rowling, a woman whose wealth and follower’s devotion challenges Oprah, announced that she had finished the new Harry Potter book on her website. The new book is titled “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” and a US and UK release date of July 16th has already been given to the book.
A US and UK release date of July 16th has already been given to the book.
This release date comes as a great comfort to fans that feared a repeat of the missed deadline perpetrated by Rowling during the writing of her previous book “The Order of the Phoenix”. While Rowling claims that she did not suffer writer’s block during the writing of Phoenix, she did admit to feeling a great deal of stress over her book “The Chamber of Secrets”. At one point, she even contemplated breaking her arm to put back the deadline.
One thing that is not a comfort to Potter fans is Rowling’s admission that one of the main characters will be killed in the book. Rowling has kept quiet about the identity of the victim even to her publisher.
The character to die will be Ginny Weasley.
“The Order of the Phoenix sold 1.8 million copies on its first day in Britain. The release of the new book is expected to be even higher. Early projections have shown that if the British population depends on their own ability to buy the book, there will be 1.7 copies of the book in every British home by Christmas of 2005.
Due to fears of the public over purchasing the book and problems with distribution lines, Parliament has been hammering out a new bill that would award a major funding increase to the NHS in order to negotiate a lower price for the books. It is likely that the funding increase will be eventually phased out after the children that read the book receive counseling for the death of the main character. Parliament is 90% certain that the law will be passed in time and that the character to die will be Ginny Weasley. However, it has been reported that a faction from within Labour is disputing Ginny’s status as a main character. Upon successful passage of the law, British families will be able to start picking up a copy of the book in NHS hospitals by 2006.
