Podcast appearances and mentions of Robert Galbraith

It's the Day Before Rowling's 60th birthday so Nick and John tackle by reader request the never before discussed subject of the Lost Child theme in the author's more than twenty published works. They re-introduce the Golden Threads idea — see their Pregnancy Trap podcast or the two Kanreki series on this subject (here and here) — then they do a deep dive into the crowded waters of Lost Children in her work, and then they go out out on a high-wire to speculate about what specific spring in her Lake subconscious mind is responsible for this recurrent inspiration. Enjoy!New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? John and Nick pull out all the stops on Rowling's 60th birthday to challenge the status quo of Rowling Studies with a reading of her work in light of a possible inspiration for the ubiquitous ‘Lost Child' Golden Thread in her work. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:'Pregnancy Traps' in the Works of J. K. Rowling: A Rowling Studies Podcast* The Golden Thread of Coercive Love that Runs Through Everything She has Written* The seven Hogwarts Professor weblog posts that John and Nick reference in that conversation can be found here:* Rowling Pregnancy Traps: Merope Gaunt* Rowling Pregnancy Traps: Casual Vacancy's Krystal Weedon, Kay Bawden* Rowling's Pregnancy Traps: Bellatrix Lestrange and the Cursed Child Delphini* Rowling's Pregnancy Traps: Leda Strike* Rowling's Pregnancy Traps: Four Strikes* Rowling's Pregnancy Traps: Last Strikes* Rowling's Pregnancy Traps: Fantastic Beasts, The Ickabog, The Christmas PigRowling's Real Reason for Going to Portugal in 1991?Where was Rowling for her 10th, 20th, 30th, 40th, and 50th birthdays?Strike Fans!* Emily Pirbright* Josh Blay* Edie Ledwell* Alexander Graves* Cherie Gittins (Carine Makepeace) Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Two Days and a Wake-Up until Joanne Rowling Murray's 60th Birthday. In their home stretch conversation, Nick and John fulfill a reader request to discuss the book inside Deathly Hallows (one of three actually…), ‘Tales of Beedle the Bard,' a text that Albus Dumbledore leaves Hermione in his will for her to read and apply to the Horcrux Hunt. Nick tells the story of Rowling's creation of six hand-written copies as six-of-a-kind gifts for those who brought Harry Potter to life. John dives into the center story of the five tales, ‘The Hairy Heart,' and tells the meaning of Harry's heart to draw out what Rowling meant by describing Beedle as “the distillation” of the Hogwarts Saga. Enjoy!New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? In the Day Before the Big Day, Nick and John do a deep dive into the Golden Thread of ‘The Lost Child,' a plot point occurring (by one count!) forty times in Rowling-Galbraith's twenty one books. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:The Heart is the Human Spiritual Center: Deathly Hallows, Ink Black Heart, and Beedle the BardRowling: Beedle the Bard is the Distillation of Harry Potter ThemesTwelve Answers to Beedle the Bard Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

We're in the home stretch of the 60th Birthday Blitz at Hogwarts Professor! On the first of the last four days of July, Nick and John return to the books at a reader's suggestion in order to give a Lake and Shed reading of the original Newt Scamander textbook, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Nick relays everything you need to know about the genesis of this work and John talks about Rowling's comments to Stephen Fry in a 2022 interview about “archetypal” animals and the importance of understanding them because human beings are story-telling animals. Her discussion of the Lethifold and Niffler are especially challenging and illuminating. Enjoy!New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? John and Nick act on the reader suggestion that we give a Lake and Shed reading of Tales of Beedle the Bard. Nick tells the ‘Three Year Summer' background of the Wizarding World's Fairy Tale collection and John talks about ‘The Hairy Heart.' Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:The J. K. Rowling 2022 Interview with Stephen Fry about the ‘Archetypes' of Fantastic Beast — and Why We Love Story* Etymology of ‘Bejesus'* Stephen Fry's Views on ReligionLiminal Women: Mermaids and Swan Maidens in Galbraith's Strike Novels (Beatrice Groves)Troubled Blood: A Jungian Reading Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Let's talk about Rowling's use of traditional chiastic structure, what anthropologist Mary Douglas called ‘Ring Composition.' John travels to his backyard Mongolian ger, the archetypal circular architectural form, to deliver a firehose introduction to the four essentials of ring writing. He uses slides to depict the structure of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as his brief ‘for instance' of how Rowling chooses to organize her stories and he provides a list of links (below!) for further reading. Enjoy!New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? John and Nick act on the reader suggestion that we give a Lake and Shed reading of Tales of Beedle the Bard. Can the Hogwarts textbook, Fantastic Beasts, be far behind? Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* The Hogwarts Professor Ring Composition Pillar Post* The Ring Inside the Ring of Order of the Phoenix: The Department of Mysteries Gauntlet* Harry Potter as Ring Composition and Ring Cycle (Lulu.com)* J. K. Rowling's ‘G-Spot' and ‘Triple Play:' The Lake & Shed Secret of Her SuccessThe Running Grave's Structure: A Master Class in Ring Composition* Running Grave: Ring Reading Index* Reading 'Running Grave' as the End of the Strike Series (A)* Reading 'Running Grave' as the End of the Strike Series (B)* Reading 'Running Grave' as the End of the Strike Series (C) Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back! John and Nick finish their back-and-forth challenge to come up with three examples of the ‘Fourteen Golden Threads' in the work of J. K. Rowling, the plot points and story features that run through everything she writes.In this second overview of the Golden Threads, Nick and John talk about Kanreki red caps and tackle three Threads each. Nick gives at least three examples for Evil Government, Occult tropes, and the Embedded Author. John responds with three or more 'for instances' of the Search for the Real, Embedded Texts, and Shadow Doppelgangers. Enjoy!New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? John and Nick respond to two readers' requests for a brief introduction to Ring Composition. John reviews the four essential elements in a proper story ring and uses Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as his example. He shifts from his Shed (garage) to the backyard ger (‘yurt') to deliver his message about the ‘meaning in the middle.' Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* David Martin reveals the Role of Books in the Hogwarts Saga* When in Doubt, Go to the Library: The Books Within the Books (David Martin Podcast)* Troubled Blood: Every Tarot Card Spread* Rowling Talks Tarot on 60 Minutes (1999)* Harry Potter and The Hanged Man: Part 1 Rowling's Most Loaded Tarot Reference* Harry Potter and The Hanged Man: Part 2 The Historical and Occult Interpretations* Harry Potter and The Hanged Man: Part 3 Its Meaning in Rowling's Written Work* Troubled Blood: A Jungian Reading Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back! John and Nick, having finished their Lake and Shed review of the seven Harry Potter novels, the first seven Strike-Ellacott adventures, the three Fantastic Beasts screenplays, and the three stand-alone stories Cursed Child, Casual Vacancy, and Christmas Pig, are open to suggestions about how to fill the remaining week of daily conversations until Rowling's birthday on July 31st. The first request we received was one asking for more on the ‘Twelve Golden Threads' in the work of J. K. Rowling, the plot points and story features that run through everything she writes.In this first overview of the Golden Threads, Nick and John go back and fourth with four Threads each. Nick gives at least three examples for Bad Dad, Writing about Writing, Violence against Women, and the Evils of Fleet Street. John responds with three or more 'for instances' of Mother Love, Ghosts, Pregnancy Traps, and the Lost Child with Grieving Steward. Enjoy!New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? John and Nick talk about the six remaining Golden Threads, namely, Bad Government, Occult Tokens, the Search for the Real, Embedded Texts, the Embedded Author, and Shadow Doppelgangers. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:'Pregnancy Traps' in the Works of J. K. Rowling: A Rowling Studies Podcast* The Golden Thread of Coercive Love that Runs Through Everything She has WrittenThe seven Hogwarts Professor weblog posts that John and Nick reference in that conversation can be found here:Rowling Pregnancy Traps: Merope GauntRowling Pregnancy Traps: Casual Vacancy's Krystal Weedon, Kay BawdenRowling's Pregnancy Traps: Bellatrix Lestrange and the Cursed Child DelphiniRowling's Pregnancy Traps: Leda StrikeRowling's Pregnancy Traps: Four StrikesRowling's Pregnancy Traps: Last StrikesRowling's Pregnancy Traps: Fantastic Beasts, The Ickabog, The Christmas Pig Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation focuses in on the remarkable Strike-Ellacott novel, The Running Grave, the last book in our review of every work of fiction with either of Mrs Murray's pseudonyms on the cover. Nick confesses to feeling stumped about what to say as his ‘Lake' contribution to the discussion — before his epiphany on a long walk with Addie that almost every buoy or pillar in Rowling's metaphorical place of inspiration finds its reflection in the seventh Galbraith mystery. John refuses to go into any detail about the work's ‘wheels within wheels within wheels' ring structure but shares instead the symbolic depth of Mama Mazu's mother of pearl fish pendant. New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? We move into uncharted territory with an overview of the Lake material via John interviewing Nick about the various pillars and pertinent examples. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:The Running Grave's Structure: A Master Class in Ring Composition* Running Grave: Ring Reading Index* Reading 'Running Grave' as the End of the Strike Series (A)* Reading 'Running Grave' as the End of the Strike Series (B)* Reading 'Running Grave' as the End of the Strike Series (C)Hogwarts Professors' Reviews of The Running Grave* Nick Jeffery* Elizabeth Baird-Hardy* Evan WillisThe Christian Symbolism of Mama Mazu's Mother of Pearl Fish Pendant* The Meaning of Robin Ellacott's fight with Mama Mazu in Part 9 of Running Grave* The Beloved Caravaggio Painting In Which Rowling Encountered the ‘Christian Fish' Symbolism* The Symbolism of the Pearl in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back! After learning the Snakewood Secrets of Dumbledore — that's right, it's Rowling the Wood Snake having a private Lake moment — we return to real books, Ink Black Heart to be specific, a novel written entirely by Mrs Murray, aka Robert Galbraith. Nick covers the front and the back of making Lake readings of Strike6 without a lot of circumspection and John talks about the eerie feeling he had while reading this book that the author was ‘having a go' at him. Enjoy!New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? Running Grave! John is not a big fan but Nick is all-in so stand-by for some real back-and-forth about the merits and deficiencies of Strike7. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* Hogwarts Professor Ink Black Heart Search Results Pages* The JKR Live Barmy Army Q&A: A Review* Gilderoy Gleenings* Intro to Epigraphs 101 Aurora Leigh* Rowling and Fandoms* The Mythic Backdrop* Strike as Zeus to Robin's Leda and Cupid to Mads' Psyche* The Gaffes* Ink Black Heart and Deathly Hallows: The Heart is Not About Emotions and Affection but the Human Spiritual Center Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is all about the Steve Kloves screenplay, The Secrets of Dumbledore, which is “based on a screenplay by J. K. Rowling.” Nick lays out the drama surrounding the third Fantastic Beasts franchise film and his favorite part of the movie (hint: it's about “confusion”). John reveals why Jacob gets a Snakewood wand and one without a core as well as why he thinks Kowalski is the embedded author in this series.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? It's back to real books, a novel written entirely by Mrs Murray, aka Robert Galbraith. We'll be discussing Ink Black Heart with Nick covering the front and the back of making Lake readings of Strike6 without a lot of circumspection and John talking about the eerie feeling he had while reading this book that the author was ‘having a go' at him. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* Snakewood: The Rarest and Most Beautiful Exotic Wood* Snakewood as a Wand Material* Wild ‘Secrets of Dumbledore' Theory: Rowling Puts Pro-Trump Message in Script that Kloves Didn't See or Remove* MsMojo: Secrets of Dumbledore's Answered and Unanswered Questions* Secrets of Dumbledore: Predictions Fulfilled and Promise for the Future Elizabeth Baird Hardy* Beatrice Groves – Secrets of Dumbledore: First Thoughts* Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore The Rowling Library Review Is Up* The Secrets of Grindelwald Screenplay: Three Quick Notes about its Publication* YouTube Link to Film Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is once again about The Christmas Pig. Nick by the Lake shares the history of the Murray Family and their beanie pig toys as well as a likely source for the defenestration of DP (in Esquire magazine, no less). John talks about the promise and the limits of reading literature through a biographical lens and then explains the anagogical meaning of the Power palace kangaroo court trial of CP and Jack. Both share their reasons for thinking that The Christmas Pig is the perfect distillation of everything Rowling is doing as a writer, to include the relationship of her Lake inspiration to her final Shed product.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? Our look at the Steve Kloves “complete screenplay” Secrets of Dumbledore, one based on an “original story” by J. K. Rowling. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* The Christmas Pig and Old Rabbit (Nick Jeffery)* The Quadrigal Reading of Christmas Pig (John Granger)* The Velveteen Rabbit and Christmas Pig (Beatrice Groves, pp 17-18)* The Faerie Queene and The Christmas Pig (Elizabeth Baird-Hardy)* The Rowling Studies podcast dedicated to Christmas Pig subjects* Warner Bros Adapting ‘Christmas Pig:' Will It Become Rowling's Best Loved Book? A Second ‘Christmas Carol'?The Perennialist Reading of Christmas Pig Series of HogwartsProfessor posts:* Part 1: John, Peter, and Jack Jones* Part 2: Dante, Sacred Art, and the Symbolism of the Tree and Its Angels12/22: Whence Holly's Hatred in Christmas Pig? The Symbolism of the ‘Broken Angel'* Part 3: The Quadrigal Reading* Part 4: The Magic In Things1/5: Rowling on Love, Hope, Happiness 2018* Part 5: The Blue Bunny1/15 Rowling, Ring Writing, and Maternal Love* Part 6: The Ring CompositionPost Publication Christmas Pig HogwartsProfessor Pieces:10/4: The Christmas Pig – The First Reviews10/10: Beatrice Groves: Unlocking Clues to The Christmas Pig10/13: “For the Straightforward Path Was Lost”: A Few Starting Notes on The Christmas Pig (Evan Willis)10/13: The Christmas Pig and Old Rabbit10/17: Alexandra Palace, JKR, Christmas Pig10/18: J. K. Rowling's Christmas Pig Interviews12/14: Rowling Talks About ‘Christmas Pig'12/17: The Original Christmas Pig was Blind Pig12/26: The Faerie Queene and The Christmas Pig12/27: The Christmas Pig: Amateur AudioBook12/28: Christmas Pig's Chapter Thirteen1/2: Does Anyone “Really” Die in Stories? Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is once again about the hilarious Christmas story for children of all ages, Christmas Pig. Nick discusses Rowling's many interview statements about the Things which were lost and how many of them match up with things she has lost; he takes a deep dive into the Blue Bunny episode outside the Gates of the City of the Missed and Rowling's embedding herself and her daughter Mackenzie in the story. John talks about the Blue Bunny and his being “found” or “saved” as an allegory of the human condition written in the Rowling shorthand-symbols for (and obsessions with) love, salvation, and what is real.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? Our second look at Christmas Pig with Nick explaining the history of the Murray Family and their beanie pig toys as well as a likely source for the defenestration of DP (in Esquire magazine, no less). John talks about the promise and the limits of reading literature through a biographical lens and then explains the anagogical meaning of the Power palace kangaroo court trial of CP and Jack. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* “For the Straightforward Path Was Lost”: A Few Starting Notes on The Christmas Pig (Evan Willis)* The Epic ‘Blue Bunny' Post* The Rowling Studies podcast dedicated to Christmas Pig subjects* Warner Bros Adapting ‘Christmas Pig:' Will It Become Rowling's Best Loved Book? A Second ‘Christmas Carol'?The Perennialist Reading of Christmas Pig Seriesof HogwartsProfessor posts:* Part 1: John, Peter, and Jack Jones* Part 2: Dante, Sacred Art, and the Symbolism of the Tree and Its Angels12/22: Whence Holly's Hatred in Christmas Pig? The Symbolism of the ‘Broken Angel'* Part 3: The Quadrigal Reading* Part 4: The Magic In Things1/5: Rowling on Love, Hope, Happiness 2018* Part 5: The Blue Bunny1/15 Rowling, Ring Writing, and Maternal Love* Part 6: The Ring CompositionPost Publication Chritmas Pig HogwartsProfessor Pieces:10/4: The Christmas Pig – The First Reviews10/10: Beatrice Groves: Unlocking Clues to The Christmas Pig10/13: “For the Straightforward Path Was Lost”: A Few Starting Notes on The Christmas Pig (Evan Willis)10/13: The Christmas Pig and Old Rabbit10/17: Alexandra Palace, JKR, Christmas Pig10/18: J. K. Rowling's Christmas Pig Interviews12/14: Rowling Talks About ‘Christmas Pig'12/17: The Original Christmas Pig was Blind Pig12/26: The Faerie Queene and The Christmas Pig12/27: The Christmas Pig: Amateur AudioBook12/28: Christmas Pig's Chapter Thirteen1/2: Does Anyone “Really” Die in Stories? Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is once again about the fifth Cormoran Strike novel, Troubled Blood. Nick discusses Rowling's history with the Clerkenwell neighborhood. John talks about Troubled Blood as a double re-telling of The Faerie Queene, Book One, with Strike and Margot as the Redcrosse Knight and Oonaugh and Robin as Una.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? Our first look at Christmas Pig with both Nick and John talking about the Blue Bunny. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* The Clerkenwell/Islington Gate of St John (Twitter Header)Faerie Queene!John Granger:* How Spenser Uses Cupid in Faerie Queen and Its Relevance for Understanding Troubled Blood* Reading Troubled Blood as a Medieval Morality PlayElizabeth Baird-Hardy* Day One, Part One: The Spenserian Epigraphs of the Pre-Released Troubled Blood Chapters* Day Two, Part Two: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Eight to Fourteen* Day Three, Part Three: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Fifteen to Thirty* Day Four, Part Four: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Thirty One to Forty Eight* Day Five, Part Five: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Forty Nine to Fifty Nine* Part Six: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Sixty to Seventy One* Spenser and Strike Part Seven: Changes for the BetterBeatrice Groves* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 1): Spenserian Clues in Troubled Blood Epigraphs* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 2): Shipping Robin and Strike in the Epigraphs of Troubled Blood* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 3): Searching for Duessa in Troubled BloodThis is a tentative listing by category of the posts at HogwartsProfessor about Troubled Blood. There's much more work to do on this wonderful work!1. Chiastic StructureRowling's fixation on planning in general and with structural patterns specifically in all of her work continues in Troubled Blood. From the first reading, it became apparent that in Strike5 Rowling-Galbraith had taken her game to a new level of sophistication. She continued, as she had in her four previous Strike mysteries, to write a story in parallel with the Harry Potter septology; there are many echoes of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth and equivalent number in the Hogwarts Saga, in Troubled Blood. Just as Phoenix was in important ways a re-telling of Philosopher's Stone, so Troubled Blood also echoes Cuckoo's Calling — with a few Stone notes thrown in as well. The new heights of Rowling's structural artistry, though, extend beyond her patented intratextuality; they are in each of Strike5's first six parts being ring compositions themselves, the astrological chart embedded in the story chapters, and the six part and two chapters correspondence in structure between Troubled Blood and Spenser's Faerie Queen.* Structure Part One* Structure Part Two, Notes Two to Six* Structure Part Three, Notes One to Three* Structure Part Four, Notes One to Three, Eight, and Ten* Structure Part Five, Notes One to Four, Nine* Structure Part Six, Notes One to Four* Structure Part Seven, Ring Latch, Story Axis* Astrological Clock Structure of Troubled Blood* Career of Evil Echoes* Order of the Phoenix Echoes* Cuckoo's Calling Echoes* Philosopher's Stone Echoes2. Literary AlchemyPer Nabokov, literary artistry and accomplishment are known and experienced through a work's “structure and style.” Rowling's signature structures are evident in Troubled Blood (see above) and her characteristic hermetic artistry, literary alchemy, is as well. Strike5 is the series nigredo and Strike and Robin experience great losses and their reduction to their respective and shared prima materia in the dissolving rain and flood waters of the story.* Strike's Transformation* Robin Ellacott and the Reverse Alchemy of the First Three Strike Novels* Lethal White as the Alchemical Pivot of the Strike Series* The Wet Nigredo: Troubled Blood's Black Names, Holiday Three Step, and Losses3. Psychology/MythologyRowling told Val McDermid that if she had not succeeded as a writer than she would have studied to become a psychologist:V: If it hadn't worked out the way it has. If you'd sat there and written the book in the café and nobody ever published it, what would you have done with your life, what would you have liked to have been?JK: There are two answers. If I could have done anything, I would have been really interested in doing, I would have been a psychologist. Because that's the only thing that's ever really pulled me in any way from all this. But at the time I was teaching, and I was very broke, and I had a daughter and I think I would have kept teaching until we were stable enough that we were stable enough that I could change.Because of her lifelong study and pre-occupation with mythology, it is fitting that in Strike5 readers are confronted with a host of references to psychologist Carl Jung and to a specific Greek myth which Jungian psychologists consider essential in understanding feminine psychology. All of which leads in the end to the Strike series' equivalent of the Hogwarts Saga's soul triptych exteriorization in Harry, Hermione and Ron as Body, Mind, and Spirit, with Robin and Strike as Handless Maiden and Fisher King, the mythological images of anima and animus neglected and working towards integration.* Carl Jung and Troubled Blood* A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus* The Anima and Animus: The Psychological Heart and Exteriorization of the Cormoran Strike Novels4. Valentine's DayThe story turn of Troubled Blood takes place on Valentine's Day and the actions, events, and repercussions of this holiday of Cupid and Heart-shaped candies, not to mention chocolates, shape the Robin and Strike relationship drama irrevocably. Chocolates play an outsized portion of that work symbolically, believe it or not; the word ‘chocolate' occurs 34 times in the first four Strike novels combined but 82 times in Troubled Blood. I explore the importance of this confection in two posts before beginning to explain the importance and appropriateness of Valentine's Day being the heart of the story, one that is in large part a re-telling of the Cupid and Psyche myth.* Troubled Blood: Interpreting the Poetry of Cormoran's Five Gifts To Robin* Troubled Blood: Poisoned Chocolates* Troubled Blood: The Secret of Rowntree* A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus5. Edmund Spenser's Faerie QueenTroubled Blood features several embedded texts, the most important of which is never mentioned in the book: Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen. Serious Strikers enjoyed the luxury of not one but two scholars of Edmund Spenser who checked in on the relevance and meaning of Rowling's choice of the greatest English epic poem for her epigraphs, not to mention the host of correspondences between Strike 5 and Queen. Elizabeth Baird-Hardy did a part by part exegesis of the Troubled Blood-Faerie Queen conjunctions and Beatrice Groves shared her first thoughts on the connections as well. Just as Lethal White's meaning and artistry is relatively unappreciated without a close reading of Ibsen's Rosmersholm, so with Strike 5 and Faerie Queen.* Spenser's Faerie Queen (Above)6. The GhostsRowling's core belief is in the immortality of the soul and her favorite writer of the 20th Century is Vladimir Nabokov, whose work is subtly permeated by the otherworldly. No surprise, then, that Troubled Blood is haunted by a host of ghosts, most importantly the shade of Margot Bamborough but to include the women murdered by Dennis Creed and Nicolo Ricci. Their influence is so obvious and so important that it has spurred discussion of the spectres that haunt the first four Strike novels whose presence had not been discussed prior to the revelations of Strike 5.* Troubled Blood: The Dead Among Us* The Ghosts Haunting Troubled Blood* The Ghosts Haunting Cuckoo's Calling, Silkworm, Career of Evil, and Lethal White7. The NamesThe Cryptonyms or Cratylic Names of Troubled Blood are as rich and meaningful, even funny, as those found in Lethal White. From Paul Satchwell's “little package” to Roy Phipps as the Spanish King Phillip, from the nigredo black elements of Bill Talbot and Saul Morris to the Spenserian echoes of Oonaugh Kennedy and Janice Beattie, and the Rokeby-Oakden coincidences, Strike5 is full of name play. Did I mention that the detectives solve the mystery largely through their exploration of names? Douthwaite and Oakden only pop-up after Strike has revelations consequent to serious reflection on their names and pseudonyms. Rowling-Galbraith really wants her real-world readers to be reflecting on the Dickensian names of all her characters.* The Cratylic Names of Troubled Blood: A Top Twenty Round Up8. The Flints and GaffesRowling commented in one of her interview tableaus for Troubled Blood that she had worked extra hard to get the dates right in this most complicated of novels and that her proof reader and continuity editor found a big mistake. Serious Strikers, though, were left crying “Alas!” and laughing aloud at the number of bone-headed gaffes in The Presence's longest work to date. It remains her best as well as her longest book to date, but, really, get the woman the help she needs to comb the book for errors pre-publication. Can you say, “Isla”?* Troubled Blood: Flints, Errors, and Head Scratchers* Troubled Blood Gaffes: A Second Look at Ages and Dates9. The AstrologyThe principal embedded text in Troubled Blood, the one Robin and Cormoran read repeatedly, create keys for, and discuss throughout the book, is Bill Talbot's ‘True Book.' It features an astrological chart for the exact time and place of Margot Bamborough's disappearance in 1974, which map Talbot used to try and solve the case. Strike is profoundly disgusted by this approach but spends, as does Robin, much of his time trying to figure out the chart or at least what Talbot made of it. Troubled Blood, consequently, turns into something of an exploration of astrology and its relevance to understanding ourselves and the world. Unpacking what Rowling means by it, not to mention what the natal charts of Robin and Cormoran tell us about these charactes, their relationship, and Rowling-Galbraith's intentionally hermetic artistry, is a large part of the exegetical work to be done on Troubled Blood.* Nick Jeffery: Troubled Blood — The Acknowledgements* Part Three, Note Five* Troubled Blood: Strike's Natal Chart* Astrological Clock Structure of Troubled Blood* Astrological Allegorical: The Sun Signs of Characters in Troubled Blood* A Second Look at Talbot's Chart: What Does it Reveal to the Unbiased Eye?10. The Tarot Card SpreadsWe know that Rowling has significant skills when it comes to astrology. What is less well appreciated is that almost from childhood she has played with tarot card reading which knowledge has informed her work. This is comic in Trelawney, say, but comes to the fore in Troubled Blood‘s card spreads: the Celtic Cross in Talbot's ‘True Book,' his embedded three card spreads in the illustrations of that tome, and Robin's two readings, one in Laemington Spa and the other in her flat at story's end.* Part Three, Note Six* Part Four, Note Five* Part Five, Note Five* Part Six, Notes Five, Six, Eight* Bill Talbot's Tarot: The Embedded Occult Heart of Troubled Blood* Robin Ellacott's Tarot: The Missed Meanings of Her Twin Three Card Spreads in Troubled Blood11. Who Killed Leda Strike?To Rowling-Galbraith's credit, credible arguments in dedicated posts have been made that every person in the list below was the one who murdered Leda Strike. Who do you think did it?* Jonny Rokeby and the Harringay Crime Syndicate (Heroin Dark Lord 2.0),* Ted Nancarrow (Uncle Ted Did It),* Dave Polworth,* Leda Strike (!),* Lucy Fantoni (Lucy and Joan Did It and here),* Sir Randolph Whittaker,* Nick Herbert,* Peter Gillespie, and* Charlotte Campbell-Ross12. Embedded TextsAll of Rowling's novels feature books and texts, written work as well as metanarratives, with which her characters struggle to figure out in reflective parallel to what her readers are trying to do with the novel in hand. Troubled Blood is exceptionally laden with these embedded texts. Beyond Talbot's True Book and Spenser's Faerie Queen noted above, we are treated to selections from The Demon of Paradise Park, Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough?, Astrology 14, and The Magus.13. The Murderers: Creed and BeattieA demon-possessed psychopath and the brain-damaged lonely woman… Each is described as “a genius of misdirection” and being without remorse or empathy. The actual murderers in Troubled Blood are distinct, certainly, but paired as well, as one of the many mirrored pairs in this story.14. FeminismTroubled Blood, Rowling has said, is a commentary of sorts on changes in the history of feminism. It is an unvarnished, even brutal exploration of the heroic age of the feminist movement, its front and back, largely through the personalities, circumstances, choices, and experiences of two pairs of women, Margot Bamborough and her plucky Irish side-kick Oonaugh Kennedy and the paired through time couple of Irene Bull-Hickson and Janice Beattie.15. Rokeby 3.0Jonny Rokeby makes his first appearance, albeit only by phone call, in Troubled Blood and yet it has reset thinking about Strike and his biological father considerably. Kurt Schreyer thinks the head Deadbeat is more Snape than Voldemort — and, if this is the case, we need to re-read the series to see how much Strike's emotional injuries from childhood neglect have misshaped his understanding of his dad so he lives in upside-down land.* Guest Post: Rokeby Redux – Is Strike's Father More Snape than Lord Voldemort? Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the fifth Cormoran Strike novel, Troubled Blood. Nick discusses Rowling's history with the divinatory art of astrology and the occult resources and reference works she brought into play in writing a novel whose primary embedded text is a murder scene's astrological chart. John talks about the astrological clock structure of twelve houses in which Galbraith tells this remarkable story.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? Another look at Troubled Blood, this time with an introduction to Rowling's ties to Clerkenwell from Nick and with John making a case for reading Troubled Blood as a re-telling of Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book One, with Strike and Margot as the Redcrosse Knight and Robin and Oonaugh as Una. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* Nick Jeffery: Troubled Blood — The Astrologers in the Acknowledgements* J. K. Rowling, Author-Astrologer, Pt 1: How Did We Not Know About This?* Troubled Blood: Strike's Natal Chart* Astrological Clock Structure of Troubled BloodThis is a tentative listing by category of the posts at HogwartsProfessor about Troubled Blood. There's much more work to do on this wonderful work!1. Chiastic StructureRowling's fixation on planning in general and with structural patterns specifically in all of her work continues in Troubled Blood. From the first reading, it became apparent that in Strike5 Rowling-Galbraith had taken her game to a new level of sophistication. She continued, as she had in her four previous Strike mysteries, to write a story in parallel with the Harry Potter septology; there are many echoes of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth and equivalent number in the Hogwarts Saga, in Troubled Blood. Just as Phoenix was in important ways a re-telling of Philosopher's Stone, so Troubled Blood also echoes Cuckoo's Calling — with a few Stone notes thrown in as well. The new heights of Rowling's structural artistry, though, extend beyond her patented intratextuality; they are in each of Strike5's first six parts being ring compositions themselves, the astrological chart embedded in the story chapters, and the six part and two chapters correspondence in structure between Troubled Blood and Spenser's Faerie Queen.* Structure Part One* Structure Part Two, Notes Two to Six* Structure Part Three, Notes One to Three* Structure Part Four, Notes One to Three, Eight, and Ten* Structure Part Five, Notes One to Four, Nine* Structure Part Six, Notes One to Four* Structure Part Seven, Ring Latch, Story Axis* Astrological Clock Structure of Troubled Blood* Career of Evil Echoes* Order of the Phoenix Echoes* Cuckoo's Calling Echoes* Philosopher's Stone Echoes2. Literary AlchemyPer Nabokov, literary artistry and accomplishment are known and experienced through a work's “structure and style.” Rowling's signature structures are evident in Troubled Blood (see above) and her characteristic hermetic artistry, literary alchemy, is as well. Strike5 is the series nigredo and Strike and Robin experience great losses and their reduction to their respective and shared prima materia in the dissolving rain and flood waters of the story.* Strike's Transformation* Robin Ellacott and the Reverse Alchemy of the First Three Strike Novels* Lethal White as the Alchemical Pivot of the Strike Series* The Wet Nigredo: Troubled Blood's Black Names, Holiday Three Step, and Losses3. Psychology/MythologyRowling told Val McDermid that if she had not succeeded as a writer than she would have studied to become a psychologist:V: If it hadn't worked out the way it has. If you'd sat there and written the book in the café and nobody ever published it, what would you have done with your life, what would you have liked to have been?JK: There are two answers. If I could have done anything, I would have been really interested in doing, I would have been a psychologist. Because that's the only thing that's ever really pulled me in any way from all this. But at the time I was teaching, and I was very broke, and I had a daughter and I think I would have kept teaching until we were stable enough that we were stable enough that I could change.Because of her lifelong study and pre-occupation with mythology, it is fitting that in Strike5 readers are confronted with a host of references to psychologist Carl Jung and to a specific Greek myth which Jungian psychologists consider essential in understanding feminine psychology. All of which leads in the end to the Strike series' equivalent of the Hogwarts Saga's soul triptych exteriorization in Harry, Hermione and Ron as Body, Mind, and Spirit, with Robin and Strike as Handless Maiden and Fisher King, the mythological images of anima and animus neglected and working towards integration.* Carl Jung and Troubled Blood* A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus* The Anima and Animus: The Psychological Heart and Exteriorization of the Cormoran Strike Novels4. Valentine's DayThe story turn of Troubled Blood takes place on Valentine's Day and the actions, events, and repercussions of this holiday of Cupid and Heart-shaped candies, not to mention chocolates, shape the Robin and Strike relationship drama irrevocably. Chocolates play an outsized portion of that work symbolically, believe it or not; the word ‘chocolate' occurs 34 times in the first four Strike novels combined but 82 times in Troubled Blood. I explore the importance of this confection in two posts before beginning to explain the importance and appropriateness of Valentine's Day being the heart of the story, one that is in large part a re-telling of the Cupid and Psyche myth.* Troubled Blood: Interpreting the Poetry of Cormoran's Five Gifts To Robin* Troubled Blood: Poisoned Chocolates* Troubled Blood: The Secret of Rowntree* A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus5. Edmund Spenser's Faerie QueenTroubled Blood features several embedded texts, the most important of which is never mentioned in the book: Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen. Serious Strikers enjoyed the luxury of not one but two scholars of Edmund Spenser who checked in on the relevance and meaning of Rowling's choice of the greatest English epic poem for her epigraphs, not to mention the host of correspondences between Strike 5 and Queen. Elizabeth Baird-Hardy did a part by part exegesis of the Troubled Blood-Faerie Queen conjunctions and Beatrice Groves shared her first thoughts on the connections as well. Just as Lethal White's meaning and artistry is relatively unappreciated without a close reading of Ibsen's Rosmersholm, so with Strike 5 and Faerie Queen.Elizabeth Baird-Hardy* Day One, Part One: The Spenserian Epigraphs of the Pre-Released Troubled Blood Chapters* Day Two, Part Two: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Eight to Fourteen* Day Three, Part Three: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Fifteen to Thirty* Day Four, Part Four: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Thirty One to Forty Eight* Day Five, Part Five: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Forty Nine to Fifty Nine* Part Six: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Sixty to Seventy One* Spenser and Strike Part Seven: Changes for the BetterBeatrice Groves* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 1): Spenserian Clues in Troubled Blood Epigraphs* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 2): Shipping Robin and Strike in the Epigraphs of Troubled Blood* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 3): Searching for Duessa in Troubled BloodJohn Granger:* How Spenser Uses Cupid in Faerie Queen and Its Relevance for Understanding Troubled Blood* Reading Troubled Blood as a Medieval Morality Play6. The GhostsRowling's core belief is in the immortality of the soul and her favorite writer of the 20th Century is Vladimir Nabokov, whose work is subtly permeated by the otherworldly. No surprise, then, that Troubled Blood is haunted by a host of ghosts, most importantly the shade of Margot Bamborough but to include the women murdered by Dennis Creed and Nicolo Ricci. Their influence is so obvious and so important that it has spurred discussion of the spectres that haunt the first four Strike novels whose presence had not been discussed prior to the revelations of Strike 5.* Troubled Blood: The Dead Among Us* The Ghosts Haunting Troubled Blood* The Ghosts Haunting Cuckoo's Calling, Silkworm, Career of Evil, and Lethal White7. The NamesThe Cryptonyms or Cratylic Names of Troubled Blood are as rich and meaningful, even funny, as those found in Lethal White. From Paul Satchwell's “little package” to Roy Phipps as the Spanish King Phillip, from the nigredo black elements of Bill Talbot and Saul Morris to the Spenserian echoes of Oonaugh Kennedy and Janice Beattie, and the Rokeby-Oakden coincidences, Strike5 is full of name play. Did I mention that the detectives solve the mystery largely through their exploration of names? Douthwaite and Oakden only pop-up after Strike has revelations consequent to serious reflection on their names and pseudonyms. Rowling-Galbraith really wants her real-world readers to be reflecting on the Dickensian names of all her characters.* The Cratylic Names of Troubled Blood: A Top Twenty Round Up8. The Flints and GaffesRowling commented in one of her interview tableaus for Troubled Blood that she had worked extra hard to get the dates right in this most complicated of novels and that her proof reader and continuity editor found a big mistake. Serious Strikers, though, were left crying “Alas!” and laughing aloud at the number of bone-headed gaffes in The Presence's longest work to date. It remains her best as well as her longest book to date, but, really, get the woman the help she needs to comb the book for errors pre-publication. Can you say, “Isla”?* Troubled Blood: Flints, Errors, and Head Scratchers* Troubled Blood Gaffes: A Second Look at Ages and Dates9. The AstrologyThe principal embedded text in Troubled Blood, the one Robin and Cormoran read repeatedly, create keys for, and discuss throughout the book, is Bill Talbot's ‘True Book.' It features an astrological chart for the exact time and place of Margot Bamborough's disappearance in 1974, which map Talbot used to try and solve the case. Strike is profoundly disgusted by this approach but spends, as does Robin, much of his time trying to figure out the chart or at least what Talbot made of it. Troubled Blood, consequently, turns into something of an exploration of astrology and its relevance to understanding ourselves and the world. Unpacking what Rowling means by it, not to mention what the natal charts of Robin and Cormoran tell us about these charactes, their relationship, and Rowling-Galbraith's intentionally hermetic artistry, is a large part of the exegetical work to be done on Troubled Blood.* Nick Jeffery: Troubled Blood — The Acknowledgements* Part Three, Note Five* Troubled Blood: Strike's Natal Chart* Astrological Clock Structure of Troubled Blood* Astrological Allegorical: The Sun Signs of Characters in Troubled Blood* A Second Look at Talbot's Chart: What Does it Reveal to the Unbiased Eye?10. The Tarot Card SpreadsWe know that Rowling has significant skills when it comes to astrology. What is less well appreciated is that almost from childhood she has played with tarot card reading which knowledge has informed her work. This is comic in Trelawney, say, but comes to the fore in Troubled Blood‘s card spreads: the Celtic Cross in Talbot's ‘True Book,' his embedded three card spreads in the illustrations of that tome, and Robin's two readings, one in Laemington Spa and the other in her flat at story's end.* Part Three, Note Six* Part Four, Note Five* Part Five, Note Five* Part Six, Notes Five, Six, Eight* Bill Talbot's Tarot: The Embedded Occult Heart of Troubled Blood* Robin Ellacott's Tarot: The Missed Meanings of Her Twin Three Card Spreads in Troubled Blood11. Who Killed Leda Strike?To Rowling-Galbraith's credit, credible arguments in dedicated posts have been made that every person in the list below was the one who murdered Leda Strike. Who do you think did it?* Jonny Rokeby and the Harringay Crime Syndicate (Heroin Dark Lord 2.0),* Ted Nancarrow (Uncle Ted Did It),* Dave Polworth,* Leda Strike (!),* Lucy Fantoni (Lucy and Joan Did It and here),* Sir Randolph Whittaker,* Nick Herbert,* Peter Gillespie, and* Charlotte Campbell-Ross12. Embedded TextsAll of Rowling's novels feature books and texts, written work as well as metanarratives, with which her characters struggle to figure out in reflective parallel to what her readers are trying to do with the novel in hand. Troubled Blood is exceptionally laden with these embedded texts. Beyond Talbot's True Book and Spenser's Faerie Queen noted above, we are treated to selections from The Demon of Paradise Park, Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough?, Astrology 14, and The Magus.13. The Murderers: Creed and BeattieA demon-possessed psychopath and the brain-damaged lonely woman… Each is described as “a genius of misdirection” and being without remorse or empathy. The actual murderers in Troubled Blood are distinct, certainly, but paired as well, as one of the many mirrored pairs in this story.14. FeminismTroubled Blood, Rowling has said, is a commentary of sorts on changes in the history of feminism. It is an unvarnished, even brutal exploration of the heroic age of the feminist movement, its front and back, largely through the personalities, circumstances, choices, and experiences of two pairs of women, Margot Bamborough and her plucky Irish side-kick Oonaugh Kennedy and the paired through time couple of Irene Bull-Hickson and Janice Beattie.15. Rokeby 3.0Jonny Rokeby makes his first appearance, albeit only by phone call, in Troubled Blood and yet it has reset thinking about Strike and his biological father considerably. Kurt Schreyer thinks the head Deadbeat is more Snape than Voldemort — and, if this is the case, we need to re-read the series to see how much Strike's emotional injuries from childhood neglect have misshaped his understanding of his dad so he lives in upside-down land.* Guest Post: Rokeby Redux – Is Strike's Father More Snape than Lord Voldemort? Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about Rowling's remarkable “fairy-tale” and the history and meaning of its release during the “pandemic” hysteria of 2020. The Ickabog, along with Casual Vacancy and Ink Black Heart, is not only one of Rowling's most autobiographical works, but, with the Lake and Shed interview, the Solve et Coagula tattoo, her RFK Award speech, and the Trans Tweet Heard Round the World, a key to her self-understanding in the critical year 2019-2020. Nick takes the ‘Shed' point and lays out the controlled demolition of her reputation among Group Thinkers on the Left in the lead up to Ickabog's publication and John shares the meaning of ‘The Ickabog's Song,' the embedded text of the tale, as interpreted by Daisy Dovetail (an embedded author?).New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? Perhaps the best single book by Rowling-Galbraith, Troubled Blood. Nick will be sharing Rowling's skills in and beliefs about astrology which plays an outsised role in the fifth Strike novel. John talks about the “Best Mate” scene in the Agency office and its important mythological backdrop. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:Nick Jeffery: Beginning at the Beginning A History of ‘Ickabog' and Christmas PigInk Black Heart and Deathly Hallows: The Heart is Not About Emotions and Affection but the Human Spiritual CenterWeek Seven of the Ickabog! Hurrah!* Last Chapters Comment‘The Song of the Ickabog' — Three NotesRowling Writes Trans Views Tell All Post; Fandom Divides ‘Team Jo,' ‘Team Trans'Reading, Writing, Rowling 44: Ickabog! John Granger's Last MuggleNet PodcastRowling's Pregnancy Traps: Fantastic Beasts, The Ickabog, The Christmas PigRowling Tweets Potter Fandom, IckabogThe Ickabog: Rowling Facebook EventGuest Post: Ickabog Notes & PredictionsThe Ickabog: JKR's Political Fairy TaleWas 2020 A Bad Year for J. K. Rowling? Nominated for 3 British Book AwardsGroves: The Rowling-Norton InterviewThe Names of “The Ickabog” – Part 1 (Beatrice GrovesThe Names of “The Ickabog” – Part 2: Ichabod (Beatrice Groves) Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Nick and John take a Lake and Shed long look at the second screenplay for the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film series. On the Lake side of things, Nick explores the Johnny Depp casting scandal and the lead-up in 2018 to the 2019 Tweet Heard Round the World. John explains that the cut scenes from this dog's mess of a movie point that the shooting script, i.e., what Rowling wrote and approved before David Yates butchered the film in the editing room, was all about Leta Lestrange. More important, John makes the Shed point that every Rowling book features a text of some kind that the characters struggle to understand — and that Crimes of Grindelwald has ten of these, a veritable library of interior texts to interpret.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? We enter 2020, Rowling's annus horribilis, with the simultaneous nightmares of the COVID hysteria and lockdowns coupled with the Trans Wars, in which all thinking people (to include Rowling) were dismissed — or, in the prevalent jargon of those years, “cancelled” — as hateful, hurtful, even murderous “transphobes.” Nick explains the fascinating received history of The Ickabog manuscript and John builds on Nick's caveats and misgivings with why he thinks the textus receptus narrative is so much hogwash. John shares his favorite scene in the book, one from ‘Week Six,' in which Daisy talks with the Monster about her heart. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:The Crimes of Grindelwald ‘Pillar Post' at HogwartsProfessor.com (more than 50 links to posts!) Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the fourth Cormoran Strike novel, Lethal White. Nick discusses the embedded class struggle in the book and its roots in Rowling's background before dropping the bomb of the real world identity of Jack O'Kent and his unhappy family. John is so taken aback by this revelation that Nick has to prompt the Shed portion of the conversation with a fun history of the Sonia Friedman production of Ibsen's Rosmersholm on London's West End, a show starring Thom Burke as Rosmer and which ended just before Bronte Studios beginning the filming of Lethal White. John explains why Rowling might have had something to do with the teevee C. B. Strike gaining a memorized knowledge of this play before filming the fourth book's adaptation.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? Another work with Rowling's name on the cover that is the not the work she wrote! Nick and John take a Lake and Shed long look at the second screenplay for the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film series. On the Lake side of things, Nick explores the Johnny Depp casting scandal and the lead-up in 2018 to the 2019 Tweet Heard Round the World. John explains that the cut scenes from this dog's mess of a movie point that the shooting script, i.e., what Rowling wrote and approved before David Yates butchered the film in the editing room, was all about Leta Lestrange. More important, John makes the Shed point that every Rowling book features a text of some kind that the characters struggle to understand — and that Crimes of Grindelwald has ten of these, a veritable library of interior texts to interpret.Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* Henrik Ibsen's ‘Rosmersholm'* Every ‘Rosmersholm' White Horse Reference (Odd Sverre Hove)* London Production of Rosmersholm: Starring Tom Burke (Cormoran Strike)* London Production of Rosmersholm (2): Starring Tom Burke (Cormoran Strike)* The ‘Reading, Writing, Rowling' podcast on Lethal White (Kathryn McDaniel, Louise Freeman, Beatrice Groves, John Granger)* The Top Ten Things We've Learned About Lethal White Since Publication Day* The Three Things about J. K. Rowling's Cormoran Strike Novels Every Harry Potter Fan Should Know* Lethal White: The Ring Structure* Lethal White: The Cratylic Names* Lethal White: Autobiographical Elements* Lethal White: Flints and Head ScratchersLethal White as Turning Point of Seven Part Ring Cycle* Does Lethal White Foreshadow Running Grave? You Betcha* The Missing Page Mystery* The Missing Page Mystery, Part 2* Does Lethal White Echo Goblet of Fire?* Lethal White: Every Goblet of Fire Link?* Lethal White: Cuckoo's Calling Retold?* The Cuckoo's Calling Echoes (25+)* Seven More Cuckoo's Calling Links* Lethal White: The Big Change at the Turn (End of the Strike Agency in Strike5?)Literary Alchemy and the Mythic Context* M. Evan Willis: The Mythic Context and Hermetic Meaning of Cormoran Strike* Guest Post: Mythological Leda Strike – Cormoran, Zeus, Castor and Pollux (Joanne Gray; prepublication)* Guest Post: Rowling's Mercurial Hermetic Artistry from Snape to Strike (M. Evan Willis; prepublication)* The Swan Symbolism* More Strike Swans: Historical and Film Connections (Elizabeth Baird-Hardy)* Harry Potter and The Hanged Man: Part 1 Rowling's Most Loaded Tarot Reference* Harry Potter and The Hanged Man: Part 2 The Historical and Occult Interpretations* Harry Potter and The Hanged Man: Part 3 Its Meaning in Rowling's Written WorkOn ‘White Horses'* The White Horse Gallows: Karmic Legacy of Empire in the UK?* Charlotte Campbell: The Broodmare of Lethal White (Louise Freeman)* Every ‘Rosmersholm' White Horse Reference (Odd Sverre Hove)* Taylor Swift's ‘White Horses' (Louise Freeman)* Lethal White: The White Horse Evidence (pre-publication list of pointers)* Lethal White Horses (Pre-publication; Beatrice Groves, MuggleNet)Series Mystery Possibilities* Lethal White: Is Strike Rokeby's Son? The Dates Don't Seem To Match Up* Bookending the Past: Cormoran Strike's Real Father? (Joanne Gray)* Lethal White: The Daddy Chiswell Evidence (Joanne Gray)Literary Allusions and Influences* Henrik Ibsen's ‘Rosmersholm'* Every ‘Rosmersholm' White Horse Reference (Odd Sverre Hove)* London Production of Rosmersholm: Starring Tom Burke (Cormoran Strike)* London Production of Rosmersholm (2): Starring Tom Burke (Cormoran Strike)* Agatha Christie's The Moving Finger* Allingham: The Fashion in Shrouds* Rowling's Favorite Poem Found in Oz : Whitman's “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances”* Dorothy Sayers' Murder Must Advertise, Ian Rankin, P. D. James (ChrisC, pre-publication)* Cormoran and Robin: Echoes of Homer's Odysseus and Penelope? (Joanne Gray)* Cormoran and Robin: Echoes of Homer's Odysseus and Penelope (2) Joanne Gray* Ben Jonson's ‘Every Man In His Humor' A Meaningful Model for Strike Stories? (prepublication)* Ian Rankin and Cormoran Strike (prepublication)* The Three Fates Meet The Weird Sisters: Cormoran Strike, Harry Potter, and the Question of Fate, Free Will, and Choice (prepublication)The National Health Service Sub Plot* Lethal White: Ghosts of Aneurin Bevan? Lorelei Bevan, Dodgy Doc, and the NHS* Lethal White and the NHS: Rowling SpeaksMiscellaneous:* Marketing Efforts and Sales* Most Common Pub Names* The Personal Assistant Drama* Possibility Two: Court Ordered Silence* The Robert Glenister Audiobook* Lethal White Wins CrimeFest Award* On ‘Doom Bar Ale'* BBC1 Adaptation a ‘Go'* A Review of the Legacy and Online Media Book ReviewsRowling Interviews, Twitter* Pre-Publication: The Lethal White Music Playlist (Louise Freeman)* The Graham Norton Interview* On ‘Galbraith Meets Graham Norton' (Beatrice Groves)* Rowling as Labour's Tweeting Prophet* New Political Maturity from Rowling?Prepublication Predictions and Speculation* A Lethal White ‘White Horse' Round-Up: An Explanation of ‘Heroin Dark Lord 1.0'In a nutshell, the theory is that Jonny Rokeby was responsible for Leda Strike's death, a ‘hit' that he arranged to insure that she would never reveal what she knew about crimes he committed as a Deadbeat, crimes to include murder, in conjunction with heroin and the drug trade. The ‘White Horse' that Rowling has been teasing readers with this past year may involve an actual stallion but the larger meaning of the clues is heroin, for which ‘white horse' is a street euphemism.* Lethal White and Strike Speculation 101: The Trouble with JKR/Galbraith Dates (Heroin Dark Lord 2.0: The IED Explosion)* Super Lethal White Speculation Podcast! Reading, Writing Rowling, Episode 14: Cormoran Strike – and Harry Potter?The thirteen HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* A Lake and Shed Reading of Casual Vacancy* A Lake and Shed Reading of Cuckoo's Calling* A Lake and Shed Reading of The Silkworm* A Lake and Shed Reading of Career of Evil* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child* A Lake and Shed Reading of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Screenplay) Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling's first “original screenplay,” Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Nick does his signature deep dive into the history of the Fantastic Beasts film franchise's origins in Warner Brothers' determination to keep the Wizarding World profit-pillar in their portfolio alive after the last Harry Potter adaptation — and Rowling's equal determination that they not use their copyright privilege to muck up her legacy with an Indiana Jones meets Crocodile Dundee knock-off. John takes the Shed pole in the conversation and shares his months long pursuit of the shooting text screenplay, the actual last screenplay over which Rowling had control. He lays out the (1) twelve scenes that were cut from that shooting script by Steven Kloves, David Heyman, and David Yates as they “fit the woman to the dress” of Hollywood blockbuster formula, and (2) how it made a mess of the movie's chiastic integrity. Hat tip to Kelly Loomis!New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? It's back to a book we know was written by Joanne Murray, aka Robert Galbraith, Lethal White, the fourth Cormoran Strike novel. Nick promises to lay out the tensions between classes and castes in this book and how the story told reflects those tensions in Rowling's own life. John is set to discuss how Ibsen's Rosmersholm, the source of this book's epigraphs, is also a story template for this turning point of the first seven books. Stay tuned! Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:Unlocking Fantastic Beasts: Finding the Text* Preface: ‘The Original Screenplay' – Not the Shooting Script or Even a Faithful Movie Transcript (What the Movie Makers Changed or Left Out)* Preface 2: Comparing the Original Screenplay with the Actual Film: What the Film Makers Left Out, Changed, or Deleted (with Kelly Loomis)* Part 1: J. K. Rowling, Screenwriter — Who is Working for Whom?* Part 2: The Film Makers and Decision Makers?* Part 3: The Six Scenes You Missed in Fantastic Beasts and the Seventh: GrindelGraves' Vision* Part 4: Fantastic Beasts Revelations from the Far Side Sources (Can You Say ‘Lego Movie'?) * Part 5: So What? The Found Text and Its Meaning* 5.1 The Story of the Text We're Looking For* 5.2 Theseus the Hero and Newt Scamander* 5.3 Jacob Kowalski: Is He Bigger than Newt?* 5.4 The Grindelwald-Credence Relationship* 5.5 Lumos and the Barebone OrphanageInterpretation and Speculation: Ring Structure, Christian Content, Elder Wand, Etc.* On the Story Structure of Fantastic Beasts: Is It a Ring?* On the Deep Back Story Revealed in Fantastic Beasts* On the Christian Content in Fantastic Beasts — and the New Controversy* Rune Magic in ‘Fantastic Beasts'? I wish* Why the Film Franchise Cannot Win a Major League ‘Oscar'* Nicolas Flamel to Appear in the Sequel? Don't You Believe It!* Who is the Death Stick's Master? The Elder Wand and Fantastic BeastsPodcasts:* Fantastic Beasts Ring Composition: A ‘Reading, Writing, Rowling' Podcast (with Katy McDaniel and Brett Kendall)* On Rowling's Missteps and Misappropriatrions in ‘History of Magic in North America‘ (with Dr. Amy H. Sturgis and Allison Mills, MuggleNet Academia podcast)* The HogwartsProfessors Talk ‘Fantastic Beasts' (with Louise Freeman, Emily Strand, and Elizabeth Baird-Hardy; MuggleNet Academia podcast)* Eugenics in American History and Fantastic Beasts (with Professor Chris Gavaler of Washington and Lee University; MuggleNet Academia podcast)Elizabeth Baird-Hardy's Fantastic Beasts Posts* Throwback Thursday with Narnia, Newt Scamander, and Fantastic Beasts: Part I* Throwback Thursday with Narnia, Newt Scamander, and Fantastic Beasts: Part II* Pack Your Bags! Newt Scamander's Fantastic Beast-y Suitcase, Hermione's Handbag, and their Literary Relatives* Five Spoiler-Free Reasons Potterphiles will Love Fantastic Beasts* Thanksgiving Thoughts on Terrific Treats from Fantastic Beasts!* Fantastic Beast Flashbacks: The Five Things We Want to Know about What Happened BEFORE Newt's NY Adventure* Fairies and Wizards? A Midsummer Night's Dream and What We Might Expect from Crimes of GrindelwaldGuest Posts:* Wayne Stauffer: Names in Fantastic Beasts* Beatrice Groves: On ‘Nagini Maledictus' – Literary Allusion in Fantastic BeastsThe twelve HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* A Lake and Shed Reading of Casual Vacancy* A Lake and Shed Reading of Cuckoo's Calling* A Lake and Shed Reading of The Silkworm* A Lake and Shed Reading of Career of Evil* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the Jack Thorne play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Nick reviews the history of how Rowling was sold on the idea of a Wizarding World stage production via a bit of bait and switch marketing and John reads the review of the Jack Thorn script by Pepperdine English Professor James Thomas. Neither John nor Nick is a big fan of the play but their back and forth about the several controversies connected with it and the question of its being “the eighth Harry Potter story” are still challenging and fun.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? Another work with Rowling's name on the cover that is the not the work she wrote! Nick and John take a Lake and Shed long look at the screenplay for the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film. On the Lake side of things, Nick explores the genesis of this movie franchise (and finds The Blind Pig speakeasy in Rowling's home!). John lays out the twelve scenes cut from Rowling's shooting script to make the case that what was published as ‘The Original Screenplay' was a Reader's Digest condensed version of her story, one that “fit the woman to the dress.”Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* Pepperdine's Premiere Potter Pundit James Thomas Reviews Jack Thorne's ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'* Re-Hashing, Re-working, and Resurrection: The Cursed Child and Why Authors Cannot Settle for Re-Visiting their Texts.* Rowling's Pregnancy Traps: Bellatrix Lestrange and the Cursed Child Delphini* New ‘Cursed Child' Condensed Version: Will the New Play's Script Be Published?* Cursed Child and HogwartsProfessor Fan Fiction post Deathly Hallows* Cursed Child: Rowling Video Testimony* MuggleNet Academia: Four Hogwarts Professors Discuss ‘Cursed Child'* Reading, Writing, Rowling Episode 12: Serious Readers Talk About Cursed Child Performances in NYC, London* Guest Post: PotterPundit at Cursed Child* Voldemort, Delphini, and Oedipus: Complex Folks and Cursed Children* Meta-Potter: Is ‘Cursed Child' Harry Potter Canon or Something Else?The eleven HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* A Lake and Shed Reading of Casual Vacancy* A Lake and Shed Reading of Cuckoo's Calling* A Lake and Shed Reading of The Silkworm* A Lake and Shed Reading of Career of Evil Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling's third Cormoran Strike novel, Career of Evil. Nick and John debate whether Rowling crossed the line of “violence porn” that she worried she had approached and they discuss why, in one of the few surveys of Serious Strikers, Career seems unique among these mysteries in being considered the best or the very worst of the set. The ‘Lake' point that Nick explores is Rowling's personal experience of violence against women and her determination to push back against the misogynist age she believes we have been living in for decades. John details the litany of crimes committed against women in the third Strike novel and suggests that in time, when we have the series as a whole, appreciation of the artistry involved will counter-balance the shock first-time readers feel on entering this boucherie.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.The ten HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* A Lake and Shed Reading of Casual Vacancy* A Lake and Shed Reading of Cuckoo's Calling* A Lake and Shed Reading of The SilkwormTomorrow? It's Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the play written by Jack Thorne “based on an original new story by Rowling, John Tiffany, and Thorne. Neither John nor Nick has seen the play but both have some thoughts about its place in the oeuvre and about its virtues and failings.Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:Ian Rankin's Rebus novel Black and Blue and Galbraith's Career of EvilThe Transabled Characters in Career of EvilRowling Discusses the Planning of Career of EvilDay of Publication Review at HogwartsProfessorThe Willy Wonka Golden Ticket Purchase of Career of EvilThe Ranking of the First Six Strike Novels:* John Granger's Choices of the Best and Worst* Nick Jeffery's Choices of Best to Worst* The Final Survey Tally Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling's second Cormoran Strike novel, The Silkworm. Nick and John discuss the date Rowling claims to have had her Lake inspiration for Silkworm, the first book idea she had for the series, and what that would mean, if true. The ‘Lake' point that Nick reveals is the probable identity of ‘Jenkins,' the mystery person to whom Strike 2 is dedicated, a revelation consequent to no little detective work (and a very close reading of Louisa May Alcott!). He also discusses some real-life literary infighting in contemporary London that might have been lifted from the pages of Silkworm. John argues that this ur-novel of the series, its point of conception, is Rowling's not especially opaque guide to how to understand a novelist's life and to appreciate their work, in short, her first ‘Lake and Shed' discussion (albeit one embedded in story). He explores Kathryn Kent's blog entry about Plot and Narrative as Rowling's pointer to the syuzhet and Fabula distinction of the Russian Formalists, the key to understanding what writers do and create.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.The nine HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* A Lake and Shed Reading of Casual Vacancy* A Lake and Shed Reading of Cuckoo's CallingTomorrow? It's Career of Evil, the Comoran Strike novel unlike all others and one which Serious Strikers either love or love to hate. Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:Does Rowling Merit the Nobel Prize in Literature?* Syuzhet and Fabula* Poeima, Genre, and Influence* LiterarinessKathryn Kent's Plot-Narrative DistinctionFirst Thoughts on The SilkwormBeatrice Groves on Early Modern Revenge Drama and The Silkworm* John's Thoughts on the Poisoned Skeleton in The Silkworm Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling's first Cormoran Strike novel, The Cuckoo's Calling. Nick and John debate the degree of Rowling's dishonesty about writing a detective series before she was outed as ‘Robert Galbraith' to include whether she really had any other plan than for the book to be published by the company and edited by the editor who handled Casual Vacancy. The ‘Lake' point that Nick explores is the identity of the real Deeby Mac, namely, Di Brooks, Rowling's former security director and currently her office manager, a veteran with years of experience in the SIB. John's ‘Shed' point is his pushback against the idea that Calling wasn't really the first book in the series because Rowling has said she had the idea for it after Silkworm and only chose it because the case would make her detective famous. John argues that the many echoes that connect the first, fourth, and seventh books but especially Calling and Running Grave mean that Calling is the point of origin around which the ring of the first seven novels was constructed.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.The eight HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* A Lake and Shed Reading of The Casual VacancyTomorrow? It's The Silkworm, the first Comoran Strike novel by conception, not publication, in Rowling's oeuvre (or ‘in Robert Galbraith's, if you prefer the second of Mrs. Murray's pseudonyms), in which Nick reveals the real-life feuding authors behind the Strike2 bitter battles between book-men (and Jenkins!) while John talks about the metaliterary heft of Silkworm's “novel inside a novel about novels.” See you then!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* Meet the Real ‘Deeby Mac:' Evidence from the Amanda Donaldson Lawsuit * Cuckoo's Calling and Running Grave: The Essential Echoes and Parallels Between the First and Seventh Strike Mysteries* Did Charlotte Campbell Commit Suicide or Was She Murdered? The Argument from the Faked Suicide-Murders in Cuckoo, Lethal White, and Running Grave* Rowling Says The Silkworm was the First Cormoran Strike Novel Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling's first adult novel and one Nick and John think she may have been writing before she was inspired to write Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It's that autobiographical, a transparency of sorts for the several unhappy women Jo Rowling Murray has been. Nick explains all the projects we now know she was working on between 2007 and 2012, the dates of Deathly Hallows and Casual Vacancy's respective publication dates, as well as the degree to which readers can assume that the novel's Simon Price is a fictional portrait of her father, Peter Rowling. John describes the three Gospel parables embedded in Casual Vacancy and why he thinks the book was a project the author was working on before the Hogwarts Saga as well as why it reflects a religious crisis akin to Harry's ‘struggle to believe' in Deathly Hallows.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.The seven HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsTomorrow? It's Cuckoo's Calling, the first Comoran Strike publication in Rowling's oeuvre (or ‘in Robert Galbraith's, if you prefer the second of Mrs. Murray's pseudonyms), in which Nick reveals the real-life Deeby Mac to whom the book is dedicated and John talks about the parallels between the first and seventh Strike novels. See you then!Links from today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* ‘Bad Dad:' A History of Rowling's Relationship with Peter Rowling, Her Father; * ‘Christmas Pig 1: Jack Jones, Peter, and John,' Rowling's Use of the Names ‘Peter' and ‘Simon' for Bad Guys in Her Stories;* ‘Exceptions to the Peter-John Rule: John Bristow, Dolores Umbridge, Matt Cunliffe;'* Casual Vacancy: The Characters Derived from Rowling's Life and Why the Book Should Not Be Read through a Biographical Lens;* The Christian Hypocrites and Sympathetic Sikhs in Casual Vacancy;* The Review of Casual Vacancy in Christianity Today (2012);* The Casual Vacancy and the ‘Good Samaritan' Gospel Parable; and* J. K. Rowling on the ‘Good Samaritan' Event in Casual Vacancy Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the seventh and final Harry Potter novels Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. John and Nick discuss the ‘Deathly Hallows' symbol, a triangulated and vertically bisected circle, from both its biographical point of inspiration to its anagogical or sublime depths. Nick reveals Rowling's story about how she was watching the 1975 John Huston film ‘The Man Who Would Be King' the night her mother died and that believes the “Masonic tag” of the story-line was her sub-conscious source for the Deathly Hallows '“triangular eye.” John thinks Rowling is really reaching here, akin to her claim that the name ‘Hogwarts' came from a trip to a public garden rather than the Molesworth books. He reviews the five eyes of Deathly Hallows and explains how Rowling embeds both a key to the four-level interpretation of symbols in how characters respond to that image and a model of how we are to interpret and understand her ‘transformed vision' mission as a writer.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of post: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.The six HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read here:* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceTomorrow? It's Casual Vacancy, the first post-Potter publication in Rowling's oeuvre, the most transparently auto-biographical, and the book Rowling Readers with few exceptions (I'm one!) deny ever re-reading. See you then! Links from today's Lake and Shed conversation:* “The Crimes of Grindelwald,” Kipling, and the Origins of the Deathly Hallows Symbol (Beatrice Groves)* Beatrice Groves Archive at HogwartsProfessor.com* The Deathly Hallows Lectures (John Granger)* ‘The Eyes of Deathly Hallows' Lecture in NYC, 2010Hogwarts Professor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the sixth of the seven Harry Potter novels, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Nick reveals the real life model for Severus Snape, Rowling's Chemistry teacher at Wydean Comprehensive, and his remarkable story and melancholy end. John reviews Rowling's version of the so-called ‘Hero's Journey,' how she re-makes it into a life-after-death ‘Harry's Journey' ten step dance we see in every book — except for Half-Blood Prince with its two chapters before we begin at Privet Drive and its ending without a Dumbledore Denouement or trip to King's Cross.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of post: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.The five HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read here:* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixTomorrow? It's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the penultimate novel and alchemical Rubedo of that series. See you then! Links from today's Lake and Shed conversation:Much more on John Nettleship, the ‘Real Life' Severus SnapeHow Harry Cast His Spell (John Granger)Hogwarts Professor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Nick talks about the darkest period in Jo Rowling's life, namely, her return to the UK from Portugal as a single mother in Edinburgh. John reviews Rowling's tagging Goblet as a “crucial” and “pivotal” part of the seven book series and introduces how the ‘story turn' in a ring composition reflects the beginning and end of the story. This involves, believe it or not, an explanation of why Harry meets with Sirius on 22 November between midnight and 1 AM, the dragons of Philosopher's Stone, Goblet, and Deathly Hallows, and five of the twenty-five points of correspondence between the first, the fourth, and the seventh Harry Potter novels.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of post: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.The three HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read here:* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of FireTomorrow? It's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the penultimate novel and alchemical Albedo of that series. See you then!Hogwarts Professor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the source of her inspiration and the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and this birthday project at the first entry in this series of post: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Today's video conversation is about the fourth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Nick talks about the trip Rowling made as a teenager to Cornwall as a young woman in which some Quidditch World Cup camping may have been involved and about her core beliefs about bigotry and prejudice. John reviews Rowling's tagging Goblet as a “crucial” and “pivotal” part of the seven book series and introduces how the ‘story turn' in a ring composition reflects the beginning and end of the story. This involves, believe it or not, an explanation of why Harry meets with Sirius on 22 November between midnight and 1 AM, the dragons of Philosopher's Stone, Goblet, and Deathly Hallows, and five of the twenty-five points of correspondence between the first, the fourth, and the seventh Harry Potter novels.The three HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read here:* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanTomorrow? It's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Big Blue Book and alchemical Nigredo. See you then! Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

It's the 250th episode of The Pulp Writer Show! To celebrate this occasion, this episode takes a look at the expectations people have of a full-time writer's life and contrasts them with the reality. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Talons of the Sorcerer, Book #6 in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), at my Payhip store: TALONS50 The coupon code is valid through May 27, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 250 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May 2, 2025, and today we're looking at what it is really like to be a full-time writer. This is also the 250th episode of the podcast, so thank you all for listening to the podcast over these last six years. Before I started recording, I totaled up the total length of previous podcast episodes and came to about 78 hours, give or take. That's like three days of continuous talking, which sounds less impressive when you realize it was recorded over the last six years.   Thank you all for listening and here's hoping you can stick around with the next 250 episodes. Before we get to our main topic, which is the expectations versus reality of being a full-time writer, we are going to do Coupon of the Week, a progress update my current writing projects, and then Question of the Week. So let's kick off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Talons of the Sorcerer, Book Six in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That code is TALONS50. As always, you can get that coupon code and the links to my Payhip store in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through May 27th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we have got you covered.   Now an update on my current writing projects. I am 60,000 words into Ghost in the Corruption, which puts me on chapter 13 of 21, so I'm about two thirds of the way through. I think the rough draft will be between 90-100,000 words long, so hopefully I can have that out before the end of May, if all goes well. I also just finished Chapter One of Shield of Power, which will be the final book of the Shield War series and that'll be my main project once Ghost in the Corruption is finished. I'm also 87,000 words into Stealth and Spells Online: The Final Quest, and that will be my main project once Shield of Power comes out. I expect Final Quest should come out pretty soon after Shield of Power just because I've been chipping away at it for so long and I'm getting close to the end.   In audiobook news, recording is almost done for Ghost in the Assembly and that'll be narrated by Hollis McCarthy. Recording is totally done for Shield of Deception (as narrated by Brad Wills) and that is working its way through processing at the various audiobook platforms, so hopefully we'll not be too much longer before we can get that to you.   00:02:26 Question of the Week So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects. And now let's move on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question, what is your favorite Jonathan Moeller book? The reason for this question is that this is the 250th podcast episode, so it seems like a good topic for that particular milestone. And as you might expect, we had an array of different opinions.   Joachim says: You are kidding us! By the end of the week? How long did you think about your own answer? Let me mirror you: for my own answer, the question is a bit difficult because I spent money on all your books, which meant I thought all of them a good buy. So let me split my answer into male and female protagonists. The best female book was Ghost Exile: Omnibus One because it prompted me to continue with Ghost Exile and fill in the Ghost series later. The Ghosts Omnibus One and Ghost Exile: Omnibus One were my first two books from you. The best male book was the one with Jack March where Thunderbolt said, “males are ogling breasts which never existed”, especially as such AI generated videos are now all over the place on YouTube.   I have to admit that I first came up with the character of Thunderbolt back in early 2021 when I was working on Silent Order: Rust Hand (that was before the AI boom really took off), so she turned out to be a very prescient character for the AI era in a number of ways.   Joe B. says: That is a tough question as there are many contenders. I'm going to go with one that is a little different, Sevenfold Sword Online: Creation, but now known as Stealth and Spells Online: Creation.   Justin says: I nominate Soul of Swords, an excellent end to an excellent series.   Perry says: There can only be one! Demonsouled. Paul says: For me, I think my favorite female protagonist  book is Cloak Games: Truth Chain. Such a dramatic change to Nadia, sets up the series in her struggles with self and enemies so well.   Brad Wills (who as you know narrated the Frostborn, Dragonskull, Malison, and Shield War series for me) says: Does a three book arc count?  Excalibur, The Dragon Knight, and The Shadow Prison made for a fantastic lead-up and finale of the Frostborn series.   Hollis McCarthy (who as you know, narrated the Ghosts and Cloak Mage audiobooks) says: Ghost in the Storm, when Caina and Kylon meet in the Battle for Marsis. Nonstop action, incredible chase scenes, and a great intro to their combative relationship.   Fred says: It's hard for me to say which book is my favorite. All your book series were all great.   Juana says: Frostborn: Excalibur with Ridmark. I happen to love stories about Excalibur, odd but true. Caina in Cloak and Ghost: Rebel Cell because Caina and Nadia are an incendiary team. So there! Randy says: Frostborn: The Dragon Knight. This whole series is great, but that is one of the high points.   Dennis says: I couldn't name my favorite as I enjoy everything you write. I probably enjoyed the Frostborn series best at the time, but having bought and read every one of your books it's now impossible.   Kevin says: There's no way on earth that I could put one book above another, so I would've to take the coward's way out and say Frostborn: The Gray Knight simply because it has a book that drew me to the worlds of Jonathan Moeller back in the spring of 2017, since which time I have bought 117 of his books, including a few omnibus editions, so a few more actual books, I suppose. I avidly read them all as they're published these days, except the Silent Order series (just doesn't grab me and pull me in like the others). Jesse says: Cloak Games: Sky Hammer. Damaged Nadia at her best, epic action the whole way. And yeah, the chapter The Last Death of Nadia Moran was viscerally cinematic and probably the biggest emotional payoff you've written in my opinion, tied her entire journey together. In my head, I cast Castle-era Stana Katic as Nadia, and it worked better than I expected it might.   Morgan says: I can't narrow it down to just one. So top three in no particular order, Sevenfold Swords: Swordbearer, Dragontiarna: Gates, and Stealth and Spells Online: Leveling. That being said, I think Niara might be my favorite character of all your books I have read.   Jonathan T says: I too am torn though only between two books, Frostborn: The Eightfold Knife and Frostborn: The Shadow Prison.   [Side note/addition from The Transcriptionist: My vote is for Half-Elven Thief!]   So thank you everyone for the kind words about all those books. For my own answer, the question is a bit difficult because I've written them all, which meant I thought all of them were good idea at the time. I suppose the glib answer would be the one that made me the most money, which was Frostborn: The Iron Tower, but it really depends on the category, like my favorite heist book, my favorite mystery book, my favorite dungeon crawl, my favorite first in series. So I think I'll go for the most basic level of categorization and split it up by male and female protagonists.   My favorite book of mine with a female protagonist would probably be Cloak Games: Rebel Fist, since it's such a turning point for Nadia and starts the trajectory of the rest of her character arc. It's the first time she really has to save the day instead of just trying to save herself and shows that her brother Russell can also handle himself, which as you know, comes up again later. My favorite book of mine with a male protagonist would probably be Dragontiarna: Defenders, since it has the Battle of Shadow Crown Hill, which was one of my favorite sequences to write. Four different characters have plans and they all crash into each other at the same time, which was a lot of fun to write and set up, which was a real highlight for me in 2020 because as we all know, 2020 was a fun year.   00:07:35 Main Topic of the Week: Writing Full Time: Expectations Versus Reality   So that is it for Question of the Week. Now let's move on to our main topic this week, writing full-time: expectations versus reality (admittedly from the perspective of a self-published author). If you spent any time around the writing community on the Internet at all, you know that many people dream of becoming a full-time writer, and sometimes people think that the only way to be successful as a writer is to write full-time. There are many expectations that people have about what it means to be a full-time writer. Now that I've been a full-time indie writer for nearly nine years at this point, I can provide some lived perspective. In this episode, I will talk about five of those expectations that people have about full-time writing and the way those expectations might be skewed.   So before we get to those, I should mention how I actually became a full-time writer. In 2016 (which seems like a really long time ago now), the Frostborn series was doing really well, and at the time I was also working full time and I realized that summer I was going to have to move for family reasons. I wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea of moving at first, but I decided to embrace the idea and try to make the best of it. This would involve moving a considerable distance to a different state and all the different problems that entails. So I thought about it and I thought I could look for a new job, but any job I would be qualified for in the area I was moving to would make less money than I was actually making from writing part-time. So I thought, why not try and make a go of full-time writing and see what happens?   Since that was nine years ago, I think I can safely say it's worked out pretty well. And I will say that it's been a pretty good experience and I am very fortunate and very grateful and very blessed to have been able to do this because not everyone has the opportunity to pursue a full-time creative job like I have been able to for these last nine years. That said, while it has been pretty great, it comes with a lot of flexibility and I've gotten to write a lot of great books that many people have enjoyed, it's not always all wine and roses, so to speak, which is part of the reason why I wanted to do this episode to let people more in what the reality of being a full-time writer for this long has been like. So with that introduction out of the way, let's move on to our five expectations versus reality.   Expectation #1: Full-time authors make a lot of money. The reality is that even full-time authors generally don't make that much money. A survey from The Author's Guild showed that the median amount that full-time authors make was just about $20,000, though full-time romance writers had a higher median income of about $37,000. Remember that this amount is before any health insurance costs, benefits, retirement contributions, and of course taxes that a traditional job might be able to provide or help with. In the United States, buying even fairly basic health insurance can easily be a thousand dollars per month for a family, and that doesn't include any costs related to deductibles, prescriptions, or additional dental or vision insurance. Authors are either on their own for healthcare in the US or have to rely on a spouse or partner's healthcare coverage. In other words, you either have to pony up a lot of money to buy your own health insurance or you have to rely on your spouse or partner's healthcare coverage.   And at least in the US, taxes are also much higher on the self-employed. Uncle Sam really does not like the self-employed. If you are self-employed, it is in your best interest to essentially form a small corporation and work for yourself (though for details on how to do that, you should consult with an accountant licensed to practice in your region). Now all these costs can add up pretty quickly, and they make the amount of money that you'll earn from writing much less than you think based on raw earnings before taxes and all the other expenses we were talking about. You also have business expenses like cover design, site hosting, editors, narrators, advertising, et cetera, that take even more pieces out of those earnings. You can duck some of those, but not all of them.   So it boils down to that you have to make a significant amount of money as an author to make an actual living after taxes, healthcare costs, and business expenses are taken out of your earnings, which is one of the reasons that writing part-time as you have a full-time job is not the worst idea in the world and can in fact be a very good idea.   Expectation #2: My next book will make as much or more than the last one did. The reality is that your next book or series might not make you as much money as the previous ones did. In fact, you can reliably predict that most book series will have a certain amount of reader drop off as a series goes on, which is why these days I tend to want to keep my series under nine to ten books or so. Budgeting based on your current income levels is not wise, especially with the current economic climate (which for a variety of reasons is very unpredictable) and with increased competition in the ebook market. Most authors have a peak at some point in their career. For example, Stephen King is still obviously making a great living as a writer putting out new books, but his new books don't sell nearly as well as the ones he put out in the ‘80s. J.K. Rowling's novels for adults (she writes as Robert Galbraith the Cormoran Strike series) don't sell anywhere near the number of copies as her Harry Potter series did at its peak.   For myself, my peak years in terms of writing income were 2016 and 2017, and I've never quite been able to recapture that level. In fact, in 2024, I only did about two thirds of what I did in 2017 (my peak year), which can be a little nerve wracking as you watch those numbers move up and down. That is why it is important for a writer (like many other creatives like actors) to anticipate that they might only have a limited window of peak success and to save aggressively rather than living large on the amount you're earning in that peak era. And I am pleased to report that I was fortunate enough and sensible enough to do that, so that even if my income has varied from year to year (2017 onward), it hasn't been a crippling loss and I haven't been out in the street or lost the house or anything like that.   Expectation #3: You will be happier if you write full-time. The reality is that is not true for everyone. Some people actually do better creatively and emotionally with the time restrictions placed on them by having a full-time job. Many famous writers, including Trollope and Kafka, kept their full-time jobs. Even Tolkien was never a full-time writer. He was a professor of philology until he retired. That was interesting to me because personally, I haven't had much in terms of emotional trouble being a full-time writer. I've always kind of had the ability to hyperfocus on a task, and I've been doing that for almost nine years now, and it's worked out well for me.   I've since realized that is not true for many people. One of the things that demonstrated it to me, believe it or not, was insurance actuarial tables. One thing that I tried to do after I became a full-time writer was try and get disability insurance in case I had an accident or severe illness and could not write anymore. I learned that it's extremely difficult for full-time writers to get disability insurance due to their high rates of substance abuse and mental illness. I was astonished by this because I've never had problems with substance abuse or mental illness myself, but given the number of writers and other creatives I've known who have had those issues, perhaps that's not that surprising, but I was still baffled to learn that.   For example, in my area there are a number of tree management companies (because it's a heavily wooded area) and it's a lot easier for an arborist who works with a chainsaw all day to get disability insurance than it is for a writer, which is somewhat crazy to think about because as a writer, I'm mostly sitting in a chair all day pressing buttons on a keyboard while an arborist is climbing a tree or in a crane with a chainsaw, which is a much more physically dangerous thing. But because of the rates of substance abuse and mental illness among full-time writers, apparently it is very difficult for full-time writers to get disability insurance. Some people struggle with the lack of structure and outward accountability that comes from being a full-time writer and find that actually decreases their productivity and leads them to fall into substance abuse or sink deeper into mental health problems. Very few people have the self-discipline and mental resilience required to be a full-time writer for years on end. And that's not me tooting my own horn so to speak, but apparently it is just the facts. Some writers even go back to full-time work just because they find it less stressful or better for their wellbeing. So I think this is an excellent example of having to know yourself and know what is best for you. For example, if you're a very extroverted person who enjoys talking to people at the office, becoming a full-time writer where you spend most of your time by yourself typing might not be the best for your long-term mental and physical health. Expectation #4: Writing full-time will make me more productive. The reality is having more time does not necessarily mean that you'll be more productive. Writers are notorious for falling prey to time wasters, such as social media scrolling, research spirals, and writing adjacent activities (of which there is a whole series about on this podcast already). It does take a lot of a self-discipline, focus, and determination to be a full-time writer. If you are a full-time writer, especially a full-time indie writer, you also have to balance writing time with various administrative tasks, marketing and ads, social media, fan correspondence, and the various tasks involved in the self-publishing process. Writing is not the only thing that writers actually do, and the other tasks often make finding time for writing more difficult than you might expect. Even traditionally published writers still have to carve out time for administrative work and assisting with marketing and social media work.   As your writing career scales up, so does the behind the scenes workload. This is true in my case. Up until 2023, I basically did everything myself, but I did have COVID pretty badly for a while in 2023 and it just knocked out my energy for a while and I realized that I can't keep trying to do everything by myself. I basically had a choice, either cut some tasks or get some help. So I have some people now, some contractors who help me with things like listening to audiobook proofs (I used to do that all myself), doing the podcast transcript, and Excel record keeping (which I used to do myself). While that is an expense, I don't regret it because it really has taken a lot off my plate and freed up more time for writing, which of course is the entire point.   Expectation #5: I admit this one made me laugh. I will have more free time as a full-time writer. I can attest firsthand that that is not true. What you have as a full-time writer is flexibility. The reality is, although there is flexibility on the job, the hours can be more than for a full-time job. There's a joke that full-time writers can work any 12 hours they want every day.   Most indie authors are putting out far more than one book a year in order to make a full-time income, and that requires a fairly demanding pace that most people don't have the self-discipline to maintain as a lifestyle for years and years on end. The majority of full-time writers right now are either romance or erotica writers who are putting out at least a book a month, sometimes even more. As I mentioned in an earlier point in the show, the administrative task can take far more time than most people would imagine. They could, depending on the circumstances, be easily 40 hours a week on their own before you have time to do a single word of writing on the page. I found you really have to guard your writing time well and find ways to keep administrative tasks, distractions, and necessary tasks such as home maintenance or childcare separate from writing.   Anyone who has ever worked from home is familiar with how difficult that can be because home comes with a wide set of distractions. Granted, that's often fewer distractions than the office, but home can have its own set of distractions. I've mentioned before that you need a bit of tunnel vision to produce the quantity of writing I do month after month. I do keep to a pretty rigid schedule. I have daily word count goals I always try to meet and I use the Pomodoro Method to make sure that I'm prioritizing my writing time.   If you are self-employed and working for yourself, that means there are no allocated vacation or sick days and no paid sick leave in the writing world. Taking a couple of weeks off usually means anticipating a loss in income, such as a month without a book being released. Sometimes, especially in the case of illness, family emergencies, and so forth, that just can't be helped. However, the long vacations people imagine writers being able to take mean either a loss of income or a couple of weeks beforehand of working extra hours to make up for it. For example, Brandon Sanderson, who is probably the most famous fantasy author right now, still works and writes on his vacations and does extra work before leaving for a vacation (such as pre-recording videos).   So as you can see, most of the expectations people have about what it's like to write full-time come from the hope that it will change their productivity or make it easier to write. In reality, if you manage your time well, you can often meet all your writing goals even while working another full-time job. Some people are even more productive under the time pressure of only having an hour or so available to write each day. You don't have to wait until you are a full-time writer for your writing career to start. I wrote for decades and published for years before I was a full-time writer.   Frankly, the idea that you need to be a full-time writer in order to be taken seriously or make money exists only in your own mind. Whether you are a full-time writer or not, what matters is having the discipline to shut out distractions and write with absolute consistency regardless of the circumstances. Even writing 250 to 300 words every single day can add up very quickly, even if you don't do it in 15 minute bursts like Anthony Trollope did.   Finally, I suppose this makes it sound like I'm painting a very bleak picture here, but I'm not. As I said before, I'm very fortunate to be able to do what I do, and I'm very grateful to all my readers that I'm able to write full-time and even hire on contractors for narration and behind the scenes work. I appreciate and am very grateful to all the readers who have supported me by continuing to buy my work and access it through subscription services like Kindle Unlimited or Kobo Plus or library options like Libby and Hoopla.   So that is it for this week. I hope it provided some insight into what it's like to be a full-time writer. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show and all 250 episodes. I hope you found the show and all 250 episodes useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

Esta semana Juan Luis Álvarez comenta las nuevas temporadas de tres de sus series favoritas: La Rueda del Tiempo, Cormoran Strike y Hacks, una fantástica, una detectivesca y una comedia. La rueda del tiempo (3 temporadas, 21 episodios, Prime Video) La rueda del tiempo es una fantasía épica que se basa en las novelas de Robert Jordan. Narra la historia de Moraine, miembro de las Aes Sedai, una poderosa organización de mujeres que pueden canalizar el Poder Único. Moraine junto a su Guardián, Lan, buscan a un grupo de cinco jóvenes aldeanos de la apartada región de Dos Ríos ante la creencia de que uno de ellos es el Dragón Renacido, que salvará el mundo. Lo mejor: Lo bien que se entrecruzan las aventuras de los diferentes grupos de personajes. El atractivo reparto. Lo peor: Que a alguien le preocupe su cercanía con "El señor de los Anillos" Tráiler Cormoran Strike (Max, 4 temporadas, 31 episodios) Cormoran Strike está basada en las novelas de detectives escritas por J. K. Rowling, bajo el seudónimo Robert Galbraith. La serie está protagonizada por Tom Burke como Cormoran Strike, un veterano de guerra que ha perdido una pierna, convertido en detective privado que opera desde una pequeña oficina y donde utiliza su visión única y sus antecedentes como investigador para resolver enrevesados casos. Lo mejor: La atmósfera londinense. La química entre Burke y su compañera (Holliday Grainger) Tráiler Hacks (Temporada 4, 31 episodios en Total Max) Deborah Vance es una diva legendaria de la comedia stand-up de Las Vegas, que intenta mantener su relevancia en el mundo del espectáculo como sea. Ava es una escritora de comedia de la Generación Z que no puede encontrar trabajo debido a que fue "cancelada" por un tuit polémico que publicó. Ambas se unen a regañadientes para refrescar el material de Vance... Lo mejor: La diva Jean Smart; increíble la fusión entre actriz y personaje. Lo peor: Algunas tramas parecen ligeramente alargadas. Tráiler

V nejnovějším díle podcastu Audinovinky se podíváme na slídily, co se Michalovi vloupali do Wishlistu, detektivy, kteří přeskakují mezi knihami, ale i na čarodějky, které se musí v našem světě schovávat. Novinek je spousta, včetně těch v naší aplikaci a audioknižním světě. Poslouchejte a o všem se dozvíte. Probírané audioknihy a další odkazy: Slídil - Tana French Génius zločinu - Andrew Mayne Zelenskyj - Simon Shuster Hnev - Matej Jurášek, Michal Červený Dospělé děti emočně nezralých rodičů - Lindsay C. Gibson Kolem dokola - Lucie Hušková Slzy zítřka - Jiří Hons Přísně tajný spolek svérázných čarodějek - Sangu Mandanna Zákony zločinu - Peter Šloser Hladový hrob - Robert Galbraith Úsvit sklizně - Suzanne Collinsová Šaman - Noah Gordon Na druhý pokus - T. L. Swan Troufalá vášeň - Penelope Douglas Zakázané ovoce - Jodi Ellen Malpas Mílový klub - Liz Tomforde 3x Čtvrteční klub amatérských detektivů - Richard Osman 3x Salanderová & Blomkvist - David Lagercrantz 3x Rhyme a Sachsová - Jeffery Deaver 3x Campbellová a Li - Peter May 3x Poirot - Agatha Christie Michal poslouchá: Carpe Jugulum - Terry Pratchett Petra poslouchá: Konkláve - Robert Harriss Petra poslouchá: Tajná historie - Donna Tartt Finalisté ceny Audiokniha roku 2024 Aplikace Audiolibrix na poslech audioknih Facebooková skupina Společenstvo audiomolů - milujeme audioknihy!

What rule change led to the fast-paced, high-scoring basketball games we love today? And who is Robert Galbraith? Hear the Off Ramp Podcast.

Our main feature is Azrael. We're also reviewing Trap, Daddy's Head, The Mind's Eye, The Revenge of Frankenstein, Carnosaur, It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie, St Johns River Monster by Armand Rosamilia, The Thing in the Woods by Gary Frank, and The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith.

This week on the She Made Me Read It Pod, Gracie and Lydia discuss by The Strike Series by Robert Galbraith and Freida McFadden Books. Spoilers? The Strike Series = Spoiler Free! Freida McFadden = Spoiler Free!

Cet épisode est une présentation de Eros et Compagnie. Obtenez 15% de rabais sur absolument tous les produits de la boutique en ligne et encouragez-nous en utilisant le code promo RAIS15 sur le site ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠erosetcompagnie.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Cet épisode est également une présentation de notre nouveau partenaire Polysleep qui, avec le code promo RAIS30, vous offre pas moins de 30% de rabais sur vos achats au https://polysleep.ca ! Faites comme Niquette et Linda (deux clients satisfaits) et procurez-vous dès maintenant votre matelas et vos accessoires Polysleep! Pour nous encourager tout en protégeant vos précieuses données (ou tout en piratant tout l'Internet), vous pouvez également vous abonner ou renouveler votre abonnement à NordVPN via le ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nordvpn.com/dsedr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ pour obtenir 4 mois gratuits et nous donner un petit coup de pouce puisqu'on reçoit 40% de la valeur de votre abonnement et ça, ça fait toute une différence pour nous! Pour nous laisser un message audio qui sera fort probablement joué en ondes, rendez-vous au ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SpeakPipe.com/DesSiEtDesRais⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ /// JULIEN MANGE SES CROTTES DE NEZ COMME UN PETIT BÉBÉ! Et ne vous inquiétez pas: Maxime Gervais est là pour le bully allègrement dans l'intro et Julien ne s'aide pas en racontant qu'il s'est trompé de direction dans le métro, ce qui nous amène à nous poser des questions sur son instinct. Guillaume Dupuis parle de films noirs et il fait des menaces de mort à tous ceux qui ne se sont jamais trompés de direction dans le métro. Maxime raconte à quel point les gens étaient torchés au lancement de Jay Scott. Murphy Cooper nous annonce qu'il traîne tout le monde en cour (les animateurs, Jo, les membres Patreon, tous nos ex, etc.) et il a bien du mal à gérer son micro. Maxime a l'air d'un moyen niaiseux alors qu'il pense que le mot « yo » veut dire « anus de babouin ». Tom Chicoine nous laisse un message pour dire d'arrêter de bully Julien, mais personne n'est d'accord. Du côté des chroniques: Guillaume s'accroche à l'été en nous racontant la fois où il a trouvé un polar (le livre, pas le manteau) dans un croque-livre à Haldimand et qu'il voulait vraiment en faire sa lecture estivale avant de se rendre compte que c'était un livre écrit par Robert Galbraith, qui est en fait le nom de plume de J.K. Rowling. Tout ça l'amène à raconter l'origine de ce nom d'emprunt et, comme bien des choses autour de Rowling, c'est assez douteux! Maxime, trouvant qu'on a juste parlé de Mario Bros dans notre épisode spécial sur les jeux vidéo, propose ensuite un quiz sur l'ensemble des jeux vidéo, mais finalement ça parle juste de Crash Bandicoot...Après un interlude dans lequel on dit à quel point Le Cobaye est bon, mais que Le Cobaye 2 est poche, on arrive au segment Eros et Compagnie qui rappelle une chronique classique de Maxime à propos d'un homme aux multiples organes! Murphy nous raconte ensuite une autre anecdote à propos de la CONNULIFE qui l'amène à se sortir régulièrement de sa zone de confort et ce, pour le meilleur et pour le pire! Évidemment, son récit décrit le deuxième cas! Des si et des rais : Si votre instinct vous a amené jusqu'ici, il est temps de prendre rendez-vous chez le psy! Avec : Julien Bernatchez, Murphy Cooper, Guillaume Dupuis et Maxime Gervais Captation / Montage / Réalisation : Jonathan Barbe Date d'enregistrement: 7 octobre 2024 Date de diffusion : 17 octobre 2024 /// Abonnez-vous à nos réseaux sociaux via le ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkTree⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SpeakPipe

Librarians Desirae and Sarah discuss Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie mysteries, including the most recent, Death at the Sign of the Rook. They also chat about other character-driven mysteries and TV series. Works mentioned: Death at the Sign of the Rook; Case Histories; One Good Turn; When Will There Be Good News?; Started Early, Took My Dog; Big Sky and Life After Life by Kate Atkinson; the movie Knives Out; the TV series Case Histories and Downton Abbey; The Hunter by Tana French; the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith; the TV series Vera and books by Ann Cleeves; the TV series The Chelsea Detective, Professor T and Death in Paradise; and the TV series Dark Winds and books by Tony Hillerman. Check out books, TV shows and movies at countycat.mcfls.org, wplc.overdrive.com, hoopladigital.com and kanopy.com/en/westallis. For more about WAPL, visit westallislibrary.org. Music: Tim Moor via Pixabay

Allison and Sarah discuss the intricacies of bowel movements, the importance of regularity, and how different factors like diet, stress, and travel can affect digestive health. They explain various stool types and provide tips for dealing with constipation and diarrhea, such as using a squatty potty, staying hydrated, and managing stress. They also touch on the connection between bowel health and pelvic floor function. Episode ResourcesClick HERE for the Bowel Massage videoSarah's book recommendation:- Robert Galbraith adult book seriesAllison book recommendation:- Come as you are by Emily Nagoski- The body keeps score by Bessel van der KolkFollow us on IG @thev.movementWatch on YouTube @TheVMovementJoin our newsletter or email us info@thevmove.comMusic provided by POW/Sunset Beach courtesy of www.epidemicsound.comFind a PT near you!

How about a trip into the whimsical universe of made-up writers – characters born purely from the creative minds of storytellers? I'm talking about literary legends who exist only on the pages of fiction, yet have left an unforgettable mark on the world of storytelling. Some people question the existence of Shakespeare himself. Other writers had to hide their personalities for various reasons. Join us for a casual yet captivating exploration of writers that never really existed – it's a literary adventure you won't want to miss! Credit: CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... J. K. Rowling: Daniel Ogren - https://flic.kr/p/7SNWXh, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... George Orwell: Cassowary Colorizations, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Potter queue: Zack Sheppard from San Francisco, CA - https://flic.kr/p/2jk1sC, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... JK Rowling: John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Agatha Christie: Agatha Christie plaque -Torre Abbey, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... The Cuckoo's Calling: JK Rowling as Robert Galbraith, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Th... Stephen King: The Long Walk, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ba... Roadwork, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ro... The Running Man, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ru... Thinner, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Th... Valancourt Books - http://www.valancourtbooks.com/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Va... Animation is created by Bright Side. #brightside Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/ Listen to Bright Side on: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD... Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook -   / brightside   Instagram -   / brightside.official   Tik Tok - https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.of... Snapchat -   / 1866144599336960   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SEASON 6 EPISODE 1: RICHARD NAIFF (WATERSTONES BRIGHTON) & ALEX FORBES (FOURBEARS  BOOKS) What's Going to Be Hot in Crime This Year? Victoria is joined by booksellers, Alex Forbes + Richard Naiff as they peer into their crystal balls to reveal what's going to be hot in Crime this year.Mentioned in the show:Mick Herron, Agatha Christie, Tess Gerritsen, David McCloskey, Matthew Richardson. Gillian McAllister, Sarah Pinsborough, CJ Sansom, Lauren North, Cara Hunter. Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins, Janice Hallett. Robert Galbraith, Lucy Foley, Richard Chizmoz, Matthew Blake, Alex Michaelides, Jessica Bull,  Recommended: Will Carver Hinton Hollow, Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose, Tim Weaver David Raker series, Backman series.VICTORIA SELMANSundayTimes bestselling author of ALL THE LITTLE LIARSAmazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeSWebsite for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.comTwitter: @VictoriaSelmanWe love to hear from our listeners! Find me on Twitter @VictoriaSelman and join in the chat using #OnTheSofaWithVictoriaProduced by Junkyard DogCrime TimeProduced by Junkyard DogCrime TimeCrime Time FM is the official podcast ofGwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023CrimeFest 2023CWA Daggers 2023& Newcastle Noir 20232024??

Jenny ist total begeistert von "Leuchtfeuer" von Dani Shapiro. Der Roman, der die Folgen eines dramatischen Unfalls im Jahr 1985 über mehrere Jahrzehnte danach beschreibt, stand in den USA monatelang auf den Bestseller-Listen und soll gerade als Serie verfilmt werden.Claudia Hellmann von der Leseliebe in Bockum-Hövel empfiehlt darüber hinaus:"Roxy" von Johann von Bülow"Das strömende Grab" von Robert Galbraith (alias J.K. Rowling)"Aus Sternen und Staub" von T.J. Klune"Ein Fall von Majestätsvergiftung" von Chris McGeorge"Jimmy und die dicken Brummer" von Barbara RosslowAber hört am Besten selbst!

Librarians Meagan and Sarah talk about what they've been reading, including nonfiction books about history, ambition, happiness and spies as well as a couple of novels. Titles discussed in this episode include: The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith, Four Shots in the Night by Henry Hemming, Build the Life You Want by Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey, All the Gold Stars by Rainesford Stauffer, The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA by Liza Mundy, Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson, and The Palace by Gareth Russell. Also mentioned: Cultish by Amanda Montell, the TV series C.B. Strike, Tana French, Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie mysteries, Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, Belfast Diary by John Conroy and A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell. Check out books and movies at countycat.mcfls.org, wplc.overdrive.com and hoopladigital.com. For more about WAPL, visit westallislibrary.org. Music: Tim Moor via Pixabay

This week, Logan and Mary share their favorite books of all time. From personal to professional, they share their top reads over the years and you might just find a new favorite to add to your reading list. SHOW NOTES: In no particular order, here are all the books/series that we mentioned: Mary's Reading List: 1. 2-second lean 2. Feeling Good 3. Harry Potter series 4. The Lunar Chronicles 5. Near Eat Alone 6. The Hiding Place 7. The First Time Manager 8. Never Split the Difference 9. Set Boundaries, Find Peace Treating People Well Logan's Reading List: 1. Profit First 2. 4-Hour Workweek 3. Harry Potter Series 4. Mysteries 1. Nancy Drew Series 2. Robert Galbraith (author) 3. Agatha Christie (author) 4. Jo Nesbo (author) 5. Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club Series 5. 10% Happier by Dan Harris 6. The Defining Decade: Why your twenties matter and how to make the most of them 7. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune 8. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi 9. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab 10. Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily & Amelia Naoski Rewatch the replays from the 2023 Better Events Conference: https://bettereventspod.com/conference Buy Us a Coffee Link: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bettereventspod THANKS FOR THE LOVE! Love this podcast? Please share with your event friends, tag us, and leave a review! Leave us a rating on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/04ivq77TMgF5HhJHJOMe1V Leave us a review on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/better-events/id1561944117 —— FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM: @bettereventspod @loganstrategygroup_events (Logan) @epeventsllc (Mary)

Recorded on Thursday, October 26, 2023 Book Talk starts at 27:53 Our annual Fall Sweater KAL has started!  Knit or crochet a sweater for yourself or another adult.   Here are the rules: Dates - 9/1/2023 - 1/15/24. That's 4 months…plenty of time to knit or crochet an adult-size sweater…or two! We have bundles for inspiration! Beginner sweaters are here. Adventurous Beginners to Advanced sweaters are here Crocheters! Your sweaters are here ANYONE can add sweaters to the bundles! There will be prizes - just post a picture of your lovely finished sweater in our FOs thread. Do you have some sweaters in progress? WIPs count as long as the sweater is less than 50% done on September 1st. Less than 50% done is your call. We don't have to “approve” your project. It must be an adult-sized sweater, and it must have sleeves. Short sleeves are fine. You must be a member of our Ravelry group to win a prize. Virtual Knitting Group via Zoom EVENTS Tracie and Barb will be at: The TKGA Retreat 2023 - November 2-5, 2023 at the Hilton Charlotte University Place Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina New Year Fiber Retreat - January 4-7, 2024 at the St Francis Retreat Center in San Juan Bautista, CA    KNITTTING Barb Finished: Bears 288 & 189   Tracie finished: Pixelated Pullover by Jennifer Beaumont in madelinetosh Tosh Merino DK, madelinetosh Tosh Sport and Duren Dyeworks Love Sport Hungry Horse Hat #2   Barb continues to work on: Vanilla Socks for Will, using Paton's Kroy Socks in the Route 66 colorway Donner by Elizabeth Doherty using Knit Picks Lindy Chain in the Sage Brush colorway   Barb has cast on: South Shore Cardigan by Kay Hopkins, using madelinetosh Tosh DK in the Tart colorway   Tracie cast on: Hungry Horse Hat 3 in various acrylics Cumulus Blouse by Petite Knit in Countrywide Yarns Windsor 8-ply   She continues to work on: Salty Air Tee by Samantha Guerin in Stitch Sisterz Laceweight Cashmere in Pine Tree and Shaggy Bear Farms Merino with Superwash and Tussah Silk in blue green   BOOKS Barb read: Falling by T.J. Newman - 5 stars Drowning by T.J. Newman - 4 stars You Can't Catch Me by Catherine McKenzie - 3 stars The In-Laws by Laura Wolfe - 4 stars   Tracie read: Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone - 3.5 stars The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike #7) by Robert Galbraith - 5 stars Kill or Be Killed by Robert Scott - 3.5 stars   Barb's recommended podcasts: Were You Raised by Wolves? Out Alive Breakdown: The Trump Indictment  

We discuss the new Robert Galbraith book, an update on Survivor, and Bryn is having a birthday party for his daughter' birthday! 

Elisabeth Easther reviews The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith published by Hachette.

Thanks for listening to Season 4, Episode 3 of Dialogue Alley! In this episode, Erik, and Melanie talk about:News: Juniper Books has some new covers!Cormoran Strike's new book, The Running Grave by Jo's pseudonym, Robert Galbraith, out now.Main Topic: Sean joins us to discuss the Cursed Child book and the translations that have been printed. Translation of the Show: Cursed ChildDialogue Alley is part of the MuggleNet podcast familyCarly @alltheprettybooks on InstagramErik @knockturnerik on InstagramMelanie @theharrypottercollection on InstagramThanks to our special guest, Sean! @mcallister_alaskagrownThanks to our Editor: TommyImages of books that are discussed on this episode will be available on Instagram @dialogueallypodcast, as well as alltheprettybooks.net and theharrypottercollection.comJOIN US ON PATREON!! You can get access to our Discord, ad-free episodes, and our BONUS EPISODES! patreon.com/dialoguealleySend Questions and Listener Mail to: Dialoguealleypodcast@gmail.comVisit our site dialoguealley.com We would love to hear from you!Music:The Magic Shoes

Australian author Kerry McGinnis makes the Australian landscape come alive in suspenseful, best selling rural mysteries that capture the soul and spirit of the Outback. Hi I'm your host Jenny Wheeler and today on The Joys of Binge Reading Kerry McGinnis talks about her childhood in the bush with her father and four siblings – years that helped form her deep understanding of nature, and how she got established as a best selling author while working an outback cattle station with her siblings. This Week's Giveaway Our Giveaway this week is historic fiction freebies for August including Sadie's Vow Book #1 in my Home At Last Series. HISTORICAL FICTION FREEBIES Sadie's Vow, Book #1 in Home At Last INCLUDED A bunch of top authors have got together and offered a great range of historic fiction - Take your pick. ​https://books.bookfunnel.com/historicalfictionfreebiesaugust2023/dm9y0sujx9 download free historic fiction Audio Book Sale Offer AUDIO BOOK SALE Offers are Audio books Galore sale ENJOY BOOKS EVERYWHERE PROMO Poisoned Legacy, Book #1 in Of Gold & Blood INCLUDED ​https://books.bookfunnel.com/audioeverywhereaug2023/kgr0xzcoio​ ENJOY BOOKS EVERYWHERE AUDIO SALE And we also have an Audio Book Sale – Enjoy Books Everywhere – with a range of entertaining fiction – including Poisoned Legacy – Book #1 in Of Gold & Blood series – available at special sale prices for a limited time. Links to follow up on these offers in the show notes for this episode on the website at The Joys of Binge Reading .com. A mention too, that my latest mystery romance Rosie's Rebellion - #3 in the Home At Last series – is on preorder at a special launch price of .99 cents for two weeks. Order online at your favorite E book store.. And remember – if you enjoy the show. Leave us a review so others will find us too. Word of mouth is the best way for others to discover the show and great books they will love to read. Links to things in this episode The Bombing of Darwin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Darwin Katherine:  https://northernterritory.com/katherine-and-surrounds Adelaide River: https://northernterritory.com/darwin-and-surrounds/destinations/adelaide-river-town The Waddi Tree, Kerry McGiness:  https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/the-waddi-tree-9781742280141 Kerry's Two Memoir books: Pieces of Blue: https://www.amazon.com/Pieces-Blue-Kerry-McGinnis/dp/0655632727 and Heart Country: https://www.amazon.com.au/Heart-Country-Kerry-McGinnis/dp/0670899216 Siege of Tobruk:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tobruk The Renmark Flood: https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/disaster/flood/display/51616-the-1956-flood#: Meanjin Quarterly: https://meanjin.com.au/ Charters Towers:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charters_Towers Kerry's Fantasies: Far Seeker: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=far+seeker&i=stripbooks-intl-ship&crid=3EFWXC6Q2YS1V The Burning Mountain; https://www.amazon.com/Burning-Mountain-Far-Seeker-Trilogy/dp/064680667X The Crow Road: https://www.amazon.com/Crow-Road-Kerry-McGinnis/dp/0646833707/ Kerry's Favourite Authors Kate Morton: https://www.katemorton.com/ Robert Galbraith: https://robert-galbraith.com/ Jodie Picoult: https://www.jodipicoult.com/ Reginald Hill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Hill Robin Hobb: http://www.robinhobb.com/ Linwood Barclay: Lindwoodbarclay.com Rebecca Yarros:  https://www.rebeccayarros.com/ Mary Stewart:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Stewart_(novelist) Where to find Kerry McGiness https://www.penguin.com.au/authors/kerry-mcginnis Introducing author Kerry McGiness Australian mystery author Kerry McGiness and Outback stories Jenny Wheeler: But now here's Kerry. Hello there, Kerry, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us. Kerry McGinnis: Thank you, Jenny. Thank you for asking me. It's great to be here.

Carleigh and Hannah talk about books that will be released in the second half of 2023 that they are excited about (or not exactly excited about... looking at you, Robert Galbraith). 

This week Tim sits down with Stewart Lynch to talk about his video teaching Swift coding. Steve has had a long career teaching computers in education, professional software applications and now in his own video series. Special Guest: Stewart Lynch.

Welcome to a journey down the rabbit hole of modern society. In this podcast, we dive into the controversial and often overlooked topics that impact our daily lives. From the rising threat of Chinese spy balloons to the ongoing J.K Rowling/ Harry Potter Video Game controversy, we examine the facts and challenge popular beliefs. We also shed light on how industrialized school systems may be indoctrinating future generations and explore the dark side of the music industry with the recent "satanic" Grammy performance by pop artist Sam Smith. Join us as we uncover the truth and spark thought-provoking discussions around current events.    Subscribe and leave a 5-star review! ----more---- Donate to support the show by going to https://givesendgo.com/redpillrevolution   Our website https://redpillrevolution.co/    Podcast Companion: https://redpillrevolution.substack.com   ----more---- Full Transcription    Welcome to the Revolution. Hello and welcome. It's Red Pill Revolution. My name is Austin Adams and thank you so much for listening today. I appreciate it. We're gonna jump right into it. We have some very interesting articles that we're gonna discuss from current events, and then we are going to talk all about the topic of the week, which is this week is going to be the education system and the industrialization of the education system more primarily. So we're gonna go back and talk about actually when the Amer Modern American education system came to be. What it is today, how it came to be, what it is today, who the money was provided by through the General Education Board for it to become what it is today, which is an industrialized factory pushing out children and literally, Programming you to become a conformist and somebody who is passive and somebody who is non-creative and a factory worker, just as the man who funded it himself said. So we will discuss that. Before we discuss that though, we are also going to discuss the Satanic performance during the Grammys by performer Sam Smith. All right. Sam Smith performed his hit song, unholy, right? Starting off to a good start there, unholy in a Satanic outfit with, uh, women in bondage all around him with flames all around him. And uh, yeah. And then immediately after that, there's a certain company that was promoting this and sponsoring this show, which is hilarious, and we will talk about who that was once we get into it. After that, we're also going to discuss the Pentagon coming out and saying that  talking about the Chinese spy. Which is probably, if nothing else, just great comedy. I cannot believe that this, the white balloon floating through the sky became the, the biggest hit story for how many days . And we'll talk about what my thoughts are on that and why I think it was just a huge distraction for something else that was bigger going on. Uh, so we'll talk about what that is, and then we are also going to discuss the controversy that is surrounding the very new Harry Potter game. Now, I, for one, am stoked about this game. I read my daughter Harry Potter every single night. I love JK Rowling. I posted about her last week. I really appreciate her opinions on the, uh, current events that are going on surrounding the trans movement and some things like that that she's spoken out on, uh, protecting actual women's rights. So there's been some controversy surrounding that. We'll talk about why, but. Just know this. JK Rowling is on the good side, , she is on the good side, and there's not too many of us, right? Especially when it comes to, you know, authors and generally creative people in the the large spotlight of the world. So holding down the Fort JK Rowling, I appreciate you. All right. Then, like I said, we're gonna jump into our main topic of the week, which is all gonna be about how the education system is just indoctrinating your children and turning them into factory workers and how that started, who founded it, why, and how to correct it for you and your family moving forward. So without further ado, let's jump into it. But first things first, I need you to hit that subscribe button if you're new here. I appreciate you so much from the bottom of my heart. I love ya. Thank you for listening. If you're already here around with me every single. I love you too. Thank you. I appreciate you. I love these conversations with you guys. So go ahead and hit that subscribe button. If you are already subscribed, leave a five star review and tell me why you love the podcast. Tell me your favorite episode. Tell me something we should talk about, whatever it is. Tell me a guest that I should have on the show, which is the direction that we're moving here shortly, um, is we will be adding in additional shows with interviews. So tell me who that is, um, or who you think I should have on the show, but. Leave a review, then head over to the red pill revolution.dot com. You'll be able to get a free podcast companion every single week directly through your email, which will include all of the links, all of the articles that are discussed here. It will also include all of the subtopic videos, the full video podcast, the podcast directly to your email every week. And it's free. If you can imagine. Last week I released three different articles that we wrote, um, surrounding the topics that we were talking about that week. So I'll have an article out this week about JK Rowling and Harry Potter's video game In the controversy around that. We will have a article out about the spy balloons, and then we will have a article out as well about Sam Smith at the Grammy's. So, and then obviously we're gonna be writing and putting stuff out about the education system, so at least three, maybe four articles this week directly to your inbox on top of the podcast companion. So what the hell are you doing if you are not subscribed? What are you doing? Just head over there right now, red pill revolution.dot com and follow us on, uh, social media at Red Pill Revolt. All right, that's all I got. Go ahead and subscribe. Five star review. Love ya. Let's jump into it. Welcome to Red Pill Revolution. My name is Austin Adams. Red Pill Revolution started out with me, realizing everything that I knew, everything that I believed, everything I interpreted about my life is through the lens of the information I was spoonfed as a child. Religion, politics, history, conspiracies, Hollywood medicine, money, food, all of it. Everything we know was tactfully written to influence your decisions and your view on reality by those in power. Now I'm on a mission, a mission to retrain and reeducate myself to find the true reality of what is behind that curtain. And I'm taking your ass with me. Welcome to the Revolution. All right. All right. All right. And my best Matthew McConaughey impression, the very first thing we're gonna talk about today is Sam Smith's Grammy performance, where he was dressed as the devil on primetime television with women around him dancing in what appeared to be bondage materials with the flames all around them. it's like in primetime, televis. Right children watching this, uh, in, in one of the most celebrated Hollywood events right now, you have people out there like Alex Jones, who have been talking about Hollywood being satanic, calling them Satanists for decades, and everybody for how long has pointed to Alex Jones and called him a conspiracy theorist, and all of a sudden it's just rubbed in our face constantly from the artwork that was on the wall of Freaky Friday. Mom's, uh, business meeting office that we talked about last week to Sam Smith's Grammy performance to. Basically everything that comes out of Hollywood from the, uh, the cosmetic lines of the Kardashians to, uh, uh, there's basically nothing that you can point to that is not satanic at this point in Hollywood. that's an exaggeration, but this is probably one of the most egregious ones. So we're, there's a lot, a lot of pushback on this, and let's find out why. So this article comes from Yahoo News and it says, did we really need a satanic bondage show at the Grammys? And this again, comes from Yahoo News, which is kind of surprising to me because Yahoo News is primarily left-leaning and even they're critiquing this. All right, so it goes on to say that, wanna know why so many people are giving up on mainstream pop culture? Take a look at Sam Smith and Kim Petra's performance of their hit song, unholy at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night, in case you missed it. Variety described the performance as including Petras dancing in a cage, flanked by some dominatrices wearing satanic headgear. Smith also dawned a satanic top hat as huge flames heated up the stage, you know, wholesome family entertainment, . Uh, now it looks totally possible for a mature adult to watch this and see it for what it is, an aggressive reach for attention through controversy, right? And, and that's what some people have done is like a defense to this, right? When it came to Balenciaga, when it came to even this, you'll see a lot of people are just saying, oh, it's just they're, they're trying to push controversy. Well, here's the thing about. Right When we're talking about people's religions, when we're talking about like the actual good verse e like maybe this isn't the time when Balenciaga is literally subtweeting pedophilia and satanic ritualistic, I don't know, endeavors through their ad campaigns. And then Jamie Lee Curtis gets called out for having a, a, a pedophilia based artwork on her wall. And then, uh, you know, all, all of these things, all of these things that are happening simultaneously over the last, I don't know, two to three years maybe now's not the time to have a Satanic ritual on stage during the Grammys. That's all I'm saying. Maybe , maybe, maybe there's a better time for that and maybe it's not immediately after Balenciaga, Jamie Lee Curtis and all of these people. Epstein like maybe now is not the. Right. Maybe there's a better time for that or maybe there's no reason for it all when you're pushing it during mainstream hours, right? You have children watching the Grammys. It's the Grammys. It's like literally like going to watch American Idol and then all of a sudden they're pushing satanism down your throat and everybody's acting like satanism isn't an actual thing, right? I watched something on Joe Rogan. I was watching the, a recent Joe Rogan episode where it was, ah, gosh, what's the guy's name? Let me see if I can find it. The guy was on Joe Rogan and he was talking about how ridiculous it is that the, the right takes, the idea that there's satanism within high up political positions and within Hollywood and all of these things. Seriously, right? Like Kyle Kolinsky, Kyle Kolinsky, which wasn't, you know, wasn't, wasn't the most crazy positions that he held during this, and I would be happy to speak with him. Um, but. His position was this. He, he went on to Joe Rogan and said something along the lines of the fact that there's real conspiracies out there, right? There's things like Epstein Island are real, but things like the Q Conspiracy, which, yes, there's definitely some crazy weird, unrealistic, bizarre and far reaching positions within the Q movement, but one of them that he called out specifically was that there is, uh, satanic rituals happening in high up positions of Hollywood and government political positions. Right. He, he alluded to the idea that, oh, that's just a conspiracy and everybody wants to call them out. But, you know, Joe Rogan has talked about this specifically, that there's actually things going on like Bohemian Grove, where you have people who are in high political positions, who are in, who are multi-billionaires, who all meet each other at a certain little club. In California, in burn EFS that are supposed to be child sacrifices to a owl God at Bohemian Grove, which again, going back to Alex Jones, he actually went and did undercover work to be there during one of these and saw the whole thing go down. This is real right now. He talked about the comet ping pong pizza thing and like pizza gate and all of that, and how crazy that is. And maybe, maybe so. Maybe that's crazy, but you cannot tell me that there is not satanists riddled within high political and positions within high, uh, societal positions like Hollywood, like music, like politics. You cannot tell me that that is not a thing. It's already been proven in places like Bohemian Grove, and then these things just compound on top of it. Right. So when we see people like Bill Clinton riding on Epstein's plane to go to Epstein Island, bill Gates being best friends, it seems like with Epstein during all of this, right, all of these people having their own islands, and then you look at the, the altars sitting on the top of Epstein Island, you cannot tell me that there is not a deeper issue going on there at all. That is not motivated in some sort of anti, uh, anti Christianity, anti-God satanic ritualistic thing going on there that is self-admitted, in be the Bohemian Grove situation. We already know that to be true. So it's frustrating to me that everybody is still trying to say that you're crazy for saying that these things exist. If you tell me that I'm crazy for believing that Christians exist, everybody would look at you and go, yeah, you're done. And, but you tell people that there's actual satanism in high positions in politics or, or even that they just exist in general. And people all of a sudden think you're a wild conspiracy theorist. It's like, no, there is a good and there is an evil, there is a light and there is a dark it. It's a real thing, guys. Okay? Now that all kind of goes back to the music conversation here, right? The conversation here is that maybe this was a cry for attention. Maybe this was a cry for controversy. Maybe they wanted to get more eyes on the Grammys cuz nobody gives a shit about it at all anymore. Nobody watches the Grammys, at least not that I know. Nobody wa, nobody cares about any of these shows anymore. They're completely irrelevant. So maybe it is a cry for attention and all publicity is good publicity, even if it is Satanic, right? Maybe that's the case, but maybe now is not the time to do that with all these things coming out, like Balenciaga and all of these other campaigns that have been rearing their ugly heads during this time, right? So, . There's my thought on that. All right. It moves on to say that this, um, it says that there was the 1980s satanic panic when politicians wives were able to get congressional hearings held to tackle the supposed scourge of heavy metal bands that seemed harmlessly campy. With the passage of time and last night's Satan bonded show reminded me of that onion headline from 22 years ago. Marilyn Manson now goes door to door trying to shock people . But even if you see the Satanic shtick as more schlocky than disturbing, it's hard to make the case that images of women grinding in cages are appropriate for network television on a Sunday night during prime time, a time when the broadest audience available, including children are watching. Again, we are talking about the Grammy Awards mainstream Pop Music's Oscars, which aired on CBS b s from 8:00 PM Now, one thing about it too is c b s before the show said, ready. What did they say? They said in a tweet, ready to worship. CBS b s, the same CBS b s that you watched Arthur on, pretty sure that was Cbs b s, the same c b s that you throw on kids' cartoons is saying, ready to worship the devil with Sam ha Sam Smith at the Grammy Awards. Now to piggyback off of that and make things even worse on the transition out of the performance, the very next thing that pops on the screen with flames in the background is sponsored by none other than Pfizer, who would have thought, , you cannot write this. Why would they do that? Why would they do that? If I was, if I was sponsoring, you know, how much that ad position costs? Do you know how much Pfizer paid out to have that specific position during the Grammy? On the backs of a Satanic ritual music performance that was going on, whether it was for shock factor or if it was really what happened. Now some people are also showing and talking about the 2000 plus people that died from an earthquake the day following. I'm not saying anything about that, but it's an interesting coincidence. Um, but what in the world, right? So, um, this is not, it goes on to say, this is not to say art shouldn't be provocative. Petris whose past hits include, treat me like a slut. During her acceptance speech, after winning the Grammy best pop duo performance for unholy proclaimed that she was the first transition or transgender woman to win the award. And later backstage explained that she grew up wondering about religion and wanting to be a part of it, but slowly realizing it didn't want me to be a part of it. So it's a take on not being able to choose religion and not being able to live the way that people might want you to live. Because as a trans person, I'm already not kind of wanted in religion. So we were doing a take on that and I was kind of, hell keep Kim, what kind of bullshit response is that? That's the best you got for that. Like, oh, I'm trans. That was literally . Literally her response is, well, don't be mad at me. I'm trans. What a perfect response. What , as far as I'm concerned, this says, Willing. Adults can watch this if they want, but last night's TV audience didn't buy a ticket for this. Indeed, on a show intended for general audiences, it was meant to provoke, to push boundaries and very possibly designed to offend a good portion of the audience. At least 30, 40% of the audience is somebody not far left liberal. Which the fact that you even have to say that like the idea that being a associated with trans or the left is inherently makes you much closer to being on the side of the satanic ritualistic performance is kind of comical. Right. And I don't think that very many people would agree with that, that are on the left that would like this to be happening. Like I, I don't think that's, but the mainstream is trying to say that. Right. Anyways, all right, let's go ahead and read on, it goes on to say, All right. And when you're sticking your finger in the eye of millions of people, it's really hard to argue with those saying that Hollywood produces a mainstream popular culture that is openly intolerant of their values. It's also harder to tell them they're wrong and intolerant. If you would prefer to check out, unplug the TV and homeschool your kids, which we'll get to at the end of this choice is a two-way street. And many are making the informed choice to tune out while they still can. I may be attuned to this, more, attuned to this than some. Almost every Sunday, my wife and I sit back at the pew of a conservative church about once a month. The pastor preaches about how bad things are in America and how our culture is. So Deb botched and depraved. Um, so this must be a very opinionated piece from Yahoo that nobody approved cuz they would never let somebody who goes to church be a part of Yahoo All right. Anyways, uh, and then they have the actual performance here. Let's see if we can see the last. Minute there. So 30 seconds. Or not? Or not. All right. Um, moving on. Moving on. All right. The next thing that we're gonna discuss here is going to be, and I'd be interested to see your guys' thoughts. Do you think that they were being real? Do you think that it was all a ploy for controversy? I don't know. Either way, do better. That's like, that's so like, can't be is the right term. Like just cheap. Cheap. If that's what you're doing for controversy, right? That's like you can just maybe be better at singing and writing songs. You don't have to do satanic stuff to get people's attention. All right. Now the next thing discussed here is that the, the . So if you had been under a rock over the last week, there was a big white balloon floating over the United States for days, and allegedly it was a Chinese spy balloon. Now, if you were to engineer a Chinese spy balloon, a spy balloon, why would you make it white Why? Why is the first color that comes to mind in the sky going to be like they just didn't expect there to be clear skies? I don't know, but it was so easy to see. It looked like, like there was everybody who was zooming in on this, this spy balloon thought it was. They're like, there's the moon and what the hell is that? Right? If, if you're truly spending billions of dollars to spy on the United States, I don't think you're doing it by painting a white balloon and then sending it across the country at 14 miles an hour. , it seems like if China already has all of the information they ever need, you know what they needed to do, even if they're flying over Montana for the, the nuke bases that are there, or whatever's going on there that they were trying to gather data and intel for. You know what they had to do? They had to go to TikTok and they had to flip. You know what? They didn't even have to flip a switch. What is this? 1980. They had to search in the search bar, Montana, nuke site, military personnel, and then they would've had a list of every single person ever, and they would've all been actively scrolling, TikTok, talking about everything they would ever have wanted to know. Why in the hell would China need a spy balloon of all things  in 20 2023 to spy on the United States? This seems so comical that they captivated the entire country with this and still managed somehow to make Biden look Incom even more incompetent than he already was in weak. But the fact that this balloon floated over the United States at four miles an hour with some type of solar panels underneath it for days. Days, and we're expected to believe that that was some type of spy balloon. To me, there's absolutely more going on here. Whether it was something to divert the public's attention away from other things that were going on, you know, like Pfizer being tried for crimes against humanity simultaneously. Hmm. Maybe that, which I think, uh, Marjorie Taylor Green brought up within some of the hearings that were going on during that time. Uh, how there was like ungodly amounts of money that were being funneled out of the covid relief sacks going to, you know, all types of horrible things. Um, so I I, I don't see how it was in the diversion. If it was, it worked and the fact that our, the American attention span, it's like, oh, a balloon. There must be nothing else going around that's worthy of news at this time. Like that's the best that they had to divert our attention. And it worked. Right? Like, how is the why? Why are we so easily fooled? Right? What , and if that was true, how, like, there's one of two options here. Option one is that we were truly, truly captivated by a balloon with no other information besides just the fact that there was a balloon. It would've been better if it was like a balloon with like the Chinese flag on it that said like, fuck you, United States or something, That would've been far more entertaining. Like that would've caught my attention better, at least have some good comedy involved. Uh, but it was just a white balloon and just everybody stopped to see what was going on. And somehow we knew it was Chinese before the Chinese even agreed with us. I heard some people saying potentially maybe it was diversion or, or it was some type of test to see if they floated these balloons across the United States simultaneously and like launched E em P attacks. They wanted to test the waters to see how capable we were of tracking them and finding them and how far into the US they would get. Maybe, maybe. But I also think that that, like, just the fact that news companies picked this up so quickly, social media picked this up so quickly. It just seems bizarre to me. Seems bizarre. I don't know, again, I'd be interested to see what your guys' thoughts are. I do not see how this balloon was the best way that China was going to surveil the United States. I, I don't buy it. They already have assets in every single military installation. They have them at every top university. They have every single person including mine, their phone bugged right now to where they're listening to this conversation of me making fun of them. , right? They can hear everything. They know everything. They can look at pictures of my dick on my phone or something. I don't know, right? They, they, they know everything about you. They know everything you're saying when you're saying it. Why the hell, anybody at all would believe they need to float a big white balloon over the United States to actually get any information that they needed is just puzzling and comical to me right now. I put something out there that was a little Babylon esque , which was like, it's my take because the Babylon bee missed on this one. They could have done better, so I put my own out there. Um, but which was that, uh, military too, too busy paying attention to completely harmless TikTok app to notice Chinese spy balloon, which is like kind of a double hit, right? Like the fact that we're gonna all sit and complain about China spying on us with this balloon. Yet every single one of you is sitting there with TikTok on your phone right now, right? Almost everybody. If you don't, and you're still holding all on TikTok, One of two things. You're either over 60, 50, maybe, maybe 45. And if you're under that and you don't got it, you lame, you gotta have TikTok, even if you're showing them off, you know, all your pictures, all your life, telling 'em everything, you know, holding outs, holding out. So just, just give your, give your life over to China. They already, they already have everybody else's information. They might as well own you too. Right. So I, I just, okay, so here's the next thing that came up. As a result of this, the Pentagon came out and said they did not detect previous Chinese spy balloons. Right? So, so the Biden administration came out and tried to say that during the Trump administration there was at least three times that Chinese spy balloons flew over the United States. which then Trump denied. Right. And that was after a top US general said that the Pentagon did not detect them, but there were, the Biden administration was trying to say, well, well it wasn't just us. Trump had two of these or three of these balloons too, right? Which is like just he said, she said H hilarity. Now it goes on and said that we did not detect any of those threats. Um, the Intel community after the fact, I believe, as has been briefed, already assessed those threats from additional means of collection and made us aware of these balloons that were previously approaching North America or transited North America. President Biden ordered the latest Chinese surveillance balloon, which spent days in US Aerospace to be shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday. I highly doubt he had anything to do with that, but the US is currently trying to recover the debris, hoping to gain intelligence from the wreck. After a senior in this article is coming from the Hill. Um, after a senior defense official said over the weekend that the US was aware of at least three different times, such balloons flew over the US During the Trump administration, the former president and his intelligence officials came out to deny the claim. Now they are putting out that the balloon was put up by China during the Trump administration in order to take the heat off the slow moving Biden Fools Trump said in the post untruth social, China has had too much respect for Trump for this to have happened, and it never did just fake disinformation. The clash between the Biden administration and Trump and his former officials prompted rep, uh, representative Marjorie Taylor Green to call for a probe into why Trump was not made aware of the balloons during his presidency if they were detected. If it's true, the Pentagon purposefully did not tell Trump of Chinese spy balloons during his administration. Then we had a serious breach of command during the Trump administration. She said on Twitter, Senior administration officials cited Sunday in Bloomberg reporting said that the US didn't learn about the previous balloons until after Trump had left the Oval Office. It is unclear how the Biden administration learned about the previous flights. Alright, that's my take on the fricking spy balloon , like there's oh oh seven, there's, you know, like, and then there's the Chinese white spy balloon, like the, the, this just shows you how, how far the US has fallen. And then last but not least in the current events trained here is going to be that JK Rawling and the Harry Potter video game are taking heat for seemingly no reason at. Okay. JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series, and I put out a, a, a post a couple days ago, few days ago now, um, talking about how JK Rowling has been vehemently posting about how she is against the movement of men wearing wigs pretending to be women and moving into female spaces under the guise of being trans. Okay? She has been very public in her, her disavowing of this movement, of calling out the people that were allowed to be moved into jail. Cells who were like actual six foot four murderers going into jail with women, like, because they were calling themself trans and wearing a wig. So she's been very, very public about this and, and, and, Fully, we, there's, there's actually some people with the balls to do this that are, have this big of a platform because she's taken a ton of heat for it, right? And now here's the, here's what's going on with it. It says, why is Hogwarts legacy a Harry Potter video game so controversial right now? The, the, the, the cliff notes of this is going to be that she doesn't agree with the trans agenda, and she believes in encroachment on feminine spaces and on femininity as a whole, right? Men putting on a wig saying they feel like a woman wearing makeup, watching some YouTube contouring classes, and then all of a sudden going to pee in a women's bathroom. As a result, she doesn't agree with it. Okay? So now everybody's calling for boycotts of the Harry Potter game and like everybody's, like from Twitter perspective and all of these, like people trying to review Harry Potter. Like towing the line, but also really pissed that this video game is just crushing it. It's a sweet looking video game. I can't wait to play it. Um, and I haven't played video games in quite a while, uh, but this one is one that I will almost go out and buy a new gaming system just to be able to play. It looks incredible. So it's a role-playing game of Harry Potter. You start out as if you are a new stu, well, not a new student, a fifth year student at Hogwarts. And then you go through and, and you can create your character, you can go on missions, you get it's, it looks amazing and. Like, for all of us that grew up on Harry Potter, like this is a dream come true. That you have something like this incredible technology like the, the, the picture that I'm looking at of Harry flying a hippogriff right now, which is like a eagle mixed with a horse. If you don't know, the Harry Potter series just looks unbelievable. Like it looks beautiful, all right? And now they're calling for people to boycott it over her position on trans ideology. Now, here's what I have to say, just as like a metapoint over all of this is that I just got done. I've been on a little bit of a fiction kick recently. I haven't read very much fiction in my life at all. So I'm going back and reading like all the OG stuff, right? Like I I the first, this started a little bit, well, I actually say it started with fairy. Um, I just start, I just finished probably a month ago. Uh, Stephen King's new book. That was the number one book of 2022, which was Fairytale, which is an incredible, incredible book. I would highly recommend you go read it. It's a bit thick. It's like 700 pages. It was a bit thick for me to read for my very first fiction book and probably 10 years Um, but it was very good. Captivated my attention. It's an incredible story, beautifully written. Like, so much like it's, it's great. I would highly, highly recommend it. Fairytale by Stephen King. Go check it out. Um, literally if you have a, a library card and, and just go buy it from Amazon anyways, cause it's like 15 bucks. Um, but here's the deal. I don't agree with the things that Stephen King said about politics. I don't agree with his positions on politics. I don't. He he's constantly calling out the right, he's, he's very liberal in his ideology. He does not agree with the Second Amendment. I could give two shits what Stephen King thinks about politics. You know what? He's an incredible writer, and I don't care what he thinks about politics. He's an amazing artist, and regardless of his political stance, just like I, I would be friends with anybody who's on the, any side of the spectrum, right? I don't think that you need to condemn somebody's life work because they disagree with you politically then that that literally means that you're gonna take 50%, 50% of the, maybe not 50% of the artist, just with the way that personality traits lie when it comes to being leaning left or being right, but, A good portion of the talented people in the world. And if you're on the right and you have a problem with artists who are left leaning, then you literally are like, out of 75% of the conversations when it actually comes to enjoying art, enjoying music, enjoying Hollywood, like Hollywood movies. Like you're just out of the conversation and the whole, so like maybe in part this is just like self-preservation in, in my appreciation of art in this lifetime, but I, I just don't see how you can take somebody's political opinion and, and just completely discount their life's work and, and, and discount something that they, this universe that they built beautifully and incredibly over how much of their, their life that you. Like made my childhood at points, it was probably one, it was the only fiction books I really read growing up that I was just like, really Remember reading? I read almost, I read all the Harry Potter books. My grandma gave them to me every year that they came out and I read them every year. I loved Harry Potter, loved all the movies, right? And, and if it was Stephen King that wrote it, I would still enjoy it. And if the game was badass and looked like this, I would still play it. I don't care about, that's like, that's the difference to me between the left and the right is that the left is going to like, and, and maybe that's a powerful thing and for the left at least, maybe that's something that you can give 'em. It's like, man, they're really sticking by it. If you're not gonna go play this sick Gary Potter game because she spoke out against women being, or men being allowed in women's prison.  after they murdered people. Like, that's your position then, you know, you're pretty, you're sticking to your guns pretty hard because I'll, I would still play this game for sure. Right. So let, let's read this article. We'll see what the actual, this is coming from Polygon. Not sure what the hell that website is, um, but let's read it. It says, Hogwarts legacy on the face of it, should have been the pure wish fulfillment for millions of fans who have been enchanted by the Lord of Harry Potter's world over the last 25 years in the video game launching next week, players will live the life of mystery and adventure that comes with being a student at pop culture's. Foremost school of witchcraft and wizardry still Hogwarts legacy and the Harry Potter franchise trouble. Many fans for reasons outside the video game, story or context. Why is that? We'll now go further behind the wizarding world curtains to explain the controversy. The game, which was announced at PlayStation State of Play event in September, 2020. Hogwarts legacy is an open world action r PPG adventure in which the player enrolls in Hogwarts school of witchcraft and witchy. Uh, the player character is user generated, however, they're a fifth stu, fifth year student, so they'll begin this, the game with some advanced magical aptitude. Why is the game controversial? Mainly because the public stances that author and series creator JK Rowling has chosen to take regarding gender identity. Going back to 2018, her views came into full display in the summer of 2020. At the time, Scotland Row, as a resident of Edenberg writing most Harry Potter series, there was considering changing its laws to allow individuals to change the gender assign in their birth certificates without a medical diagnosis. After a couple years of Corey's social media adjusters and replies on the subject, on June 10th, 2020 Row, published a confrontational 3,600 word essay on her personal website, spelling out her views on gender identity, her skepticism of transgender inclusive laws and policies, and the new trans activism row invoked her own survival of domestic abuse and surv sexual assault, while also raising a discredited hypothetical about male, a discredited hypothetical about male sexual predators being allowed into restrooms for girls and women as long as they identify as women. There is nothing hypothetical about that. There's literally countless articles out there of people predators. There's literally a school where they silence the girl and their parents for talking about this boy that was coming into the women's locker room and and preying on. I'm pretty sure raped them in this locker room. And then they were, the school was standing up for the man, the boy who was identifying as a girl and literally raped these girls. And, and like this's, not a high, a discredited hypothetical to say that this is happening. Like if you are a predator, why would you not do that? It's literally a backdoor like workaround, loophole to being able to be a fucking creep. And all you have to do is throw a wig on it and nobody gets to say anything to you like that. Yeah. Not a discredited hypothetical. Anyways, since the June, 2020 editorial rolling has continued to engage with the subject of transgender identity from the same point of view, her crime trouble, or crime crime novel, it's the Wine Troubled Blood, also published in 2020 under the Nome Day Plume, Robert Galbraith. Well, that was pretty good. Huh um, tells the story of a serial killer who dresses as a woman when he carries out his murders. LGBTQ plus advocacy organizations condemned it in Rowing's other writings as harmful and subor the harm and discrimination of transgender persons. Although some of Rowing's celebrity colleagues publicly came to her defense, um, is she developing it reportedly? Not immediately after Hogwarts legacy worldwide revealed in September, 2020, publishers, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Post, they frequently asked questions that distance the project from rolling. Hogwarts legacy is not a new story from rowing. Um, adding that rolling is not directly involved in the creation of the game. All right. It says, obviously, however it is built on the Harry Potter Kenos in concepts that Rolling had has developed since the book Harry Potter and The Philosopher Stone, which was published in 1997. Warner Bro's. Interactive Entertainment put its Utah based studio Avalanche software on Hogwarts legacy. W B I E acquired Avalanche. Who cares? All this said Rollings inevitably benefits from the publication in sale of ho like, yeah, of course. Whether that's in the form of royalty is a specific payment to adapt to her work. Who cares? Who cares? Um, yeah, who cares? Yes, she's involved. She literally created this entire universe in her head, along with all of the characters, all of the games, all of the spells, the entire school that you're going to all of it. And if you care to put a political statement down to not play it, she does not give a flying shit, as she said on Twitter. Um, literally actually said that on Twitter. I'll, I'll read you verbatim. She said. Uh, you're not required to buy it as she, oh, she retweeted this from Solomon Rushdi. Um, you're not required to buy it. The truth is the truth, whether you buy it or not, the planet is round. Even if you don't buy that and insist it's flat. But I'm, it, the, whoever tweeted that or retweeted somebody talking about it, um, deleted this. So I can't tell what the context of that was, but it seems to be about the video game, I would assume it is. Um, but another tweet by JK Rowling said, I don't know about you, but excluding women from women's prisons just because they've got penises, male pattern baldness and have committed a couple rapes, seems awfully turfy to me. . And that was a response to, does Scotland's first prime Minister believe all trans women are women? Uh, yeah, because they recently in Scotland said that men could not go live in women's prisons just because they think they're a girl. So, Anyways, let's go back and see if there's anything of merit on this. Here's something that Jesse Earl said, no idea who that is, but don't really care. Um, any support of the Harry Potter franchise current projects while JK Rowling is in charge of it and using her ongoing platform to target and also justify her continued targeting of trans people is harmful to trans people. I will not begrudge anyone their love of past works or things they've already owned that they take comfort in. I own the first nine movies and all seven books myself, but any support of something like Hogwarts legacy is harmful. It's so harmful to say that men who raped women should not be in prison with women. Um, and then JK Rowling said deeply disappointed. Jesse Granger doesn't realize, pure think is incompatible with owning anything connected with me in any form. The true righteous wouldn't just burn their books in movies, but the lo local library, anything with an owl on it. And their own bad dogs do better. Um, way to go JK Rowling. Um, yeah, so it's the fact that they're like, trying to say that you should just outright not play this game at all, to me, is like comical. Like I said, I read Stephen King's book. I I think that you should go read Stephen King's book regardless of his political opinion. It's a phenomenal book. Harry Potter's a phenomenal, apparently a video game now. Uh, it's phenomenal books. Who cares about their political ideology? You should appreciate good art regardless of what they think. And, and in a world where, you know, like 50 years ago, you would've never even known these things to begin with. So like, who cares? Go read Stephen King. Go read JK Rowling. Who cares? Uh, appreciate good art and art for what it is. And, and if you don't agree with their political opinions, then don't follow them on Twitter. Who gives a shit right? Those are my thoughts. All right, and last but not least, the very last thing we're gonna discuss is going to be the American education system. All right, now we'll see how long we get into this, cuz I have quite the lengthy article here that we're gonna read through, which goes into all of it, the history, who funded it, all of it. But before I do that, the first thing I need you to do is if you didn't listen to me the first time, I'm just gonna assume you like, you know, I don't know your, your earbuds fell out while you were cleaning your house. You fell outta your car for 15 to 20 seconds, jumped up, opened the door, and got back in there. And just so happened to miss the first part where I asked you to subscribe . But if you could and you didn't already, please hit that subscribe button, I would appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. I truly would. If you already subscribe, please leave a five star review and then go sign up for the ck. All right, here's the deal with the CK and here's why I'm pushing this so heavily and here's why I'm going to be putting out so much more content there. The sub is the only place that I have a direct connection with you. Okay? Nobody's taking away my sub. Nobody's taking away the email list that I download a CSV file of nobody. I will always have access to your email. 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Um, there's nothing below the paywall, but there is the appreciation of my warmest, heartfelt appreciations. All right, so, But eventually we will be doing something with that. So for now it's free. Go ahead and sign up. All right, now moving on. Here we go. This is an article that was written up by the soul jam.com. All right. Now, I've been diving into this for a pretty long time now, the, the reason that I'm going into this today is because I believe wholeheartedly in the idea of educating your children. Right. I believe that as a society as a whole, we have been abdicating far too much of the responsibility of raising our children to corporations, governmental entities, and screens. Okay? That's what we've been doing, and we've been doing it in the name of like, easier, like, like just. Go away from me. Right? It's easier if your kid goes off to school every day and you don't have to deal with them. It's easier if you turn on a TV and the first thing in the morning when they wake up, so you don't have to deal with them. It's easier if you, you know, X, Y, and Z and, and fill it in. Every single thing that we do today in the modern society is for the ease of the parents and the, the lack of the child, right? So in school's, one of the biggest ones of that, my children that are of school age are all homeschooled by my wife. Okay? We sat down, we figured up a cur, figured out a curriculum. This is not something that I'm just. Talking about, and as a hypothetical, I live this every day, okay? And it's not easy to homeschool your children. It is not easy. But you know what else is not easy? Is knowing that your child is being indoctrinated in a school system that doesn't align with your belief systems. It's also knowing that your child is being indoctrinated in a school system, that there's 25 other children in the room where your child's getting very little, if any attention, and you could give them the same amount of quality of education, if not far greater in the fraction amount of the time. And all we're doing with public schools is literally just pushing our children into a glorified daycare, okay? Especially in an age where technology gives you the ability to educate yourself better than you can. Go online right now and take free Harvard courses. No problem. You can go online to YouTube right now and go find the single best person, and it's already curated for you. YouTube's already done all the legwork. They've found the single best person at teaching you something in, in, in the most engaging and entertaining way you can go find it, search literally anything, and you'll be able to find it. It's all done for you. That's how easy our lives are, but we've forgotten that. We're so far from that now that just because we have access to the information, we're still shoving our children off to schools just because it's easier. So there's my preempt. Let's read this article. It says, the Ugly Truth about the education system that You Were Never Told, quote by Alo Einstein says, education is not the learning of facts, but the training of minds. And Albert Einstein said, ever since I've gotten deeper, and, and this is an article written by, um, again, the Soulja. Um, it says, ever since I've gotten deeper into spirituality, meditation, and metaphysics, a lot of my views in the variety of subjects have changed dramatically. But something that hasn't changed since the time I was a kid is my views on the education system. We usually think of schools as environments to stimulate learning, but it ironically, ironically, manages to stifle the innate curiosity and the eagerness to learn that are present in all of us as children. It promotes mindless conformity and conveniently ignores the fact that we are all unique individuals with different talents, inclinations, and aspirations. Schools curtail independent thinking and inputs all of us through standardized tests and sees it as a good indicator to determine someone's level of intelligence. The system frankly never made sense to me, and I would often sit in class and wonder how most of what I was taught in class would have any real life application. But upon exploring the origins of the current education system, it has finally started to make perfect sense, and I've discovered that it is serving the very purpose it was designed to accomplish. What if I told you that it was never meant to, to meant for the objective of the current education system to nurture, learning, curiosity, critical thinking and creativity in students, but in fact, to do quite the opposite. In this post, I'd like to share with you a compilation of writings that reveal the veracity of the above statements by uncovering the startling origins and purpose of the education system, the factory model of education. Um, the famous author and futurist, Alwin Toffler describes the origins of the current education system in his 1970s book, future Shock, which goes on to say, pause for Wine, which goes on to. The American, the American education system,  education system, as well as the system practiced here in India and around the world, was actually copied from the 18th century Prussian model designed to create docile subjects in factory workers. Mass education was the Indi or the ingenious machine, constructed by industrialism to produce the kind of adults that needed how to preap children for a new world, a world of repetitive indoor toil, smoke noise machines, crowded living conditions, collective discipline in a world in which time was to be regulated, not by the cycle of the sun and the moon, but by the factory whistle and the clock. The solution was an education system that in its very structure, simulated this new world. This new system did not emerge instantly, even today. It remains throwback elements from the pre-industrial society, yet the whole idea of assembling masses of a students to be processed by teachers in essentially located school. Was a stroke of industrial genius. The whole administration hierarchy of education as it grew up, followed the model of the industrial bureaucracy. The very organization of knowledge into permanent disciplines was grounded on industrial assumptions. Children's children's marched from place to place and sat in the signs stations bells rang to announce changes of time. The inner life of the school became an anticipatory mirror, a perfect introduction to industrial society. The most criticized feature of education today, the regimentation, lack of indus or individualization, the rigid systems of seating, grouping, grading and marking. The authoritarian rule of the teacher are precisely those that made mass public education so effective in instrument of adaptation for its place. And. Built on the factory model, mass education, taught basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, A bit of history and other subjects. The overt curriculum beneath it was the covert curriculum that was far more basic. It consisted of three courses, punctuality, obedience, and repetitive work. The basic training requirements to produce reliable, productive factory workers. Factory labor demanded workers who would take orders from a management hierarchy without questioning, and it demanded men and women prepared to slave away at machines or in offices performing brutally repetitive tasks. And that was a paraphrased article from Alan Toffler s Future Shock Book. All right, so now what we go on to find was that the model that was modeled off of the Prussian model of the 18th century was implemented by none other than the Rockefeller family, John d Rockefeller implemented. Using 129 million, the general education board, and provided major funding for schools across the nation and was very influential in shaping the school systems. He didn't exactly conceal his interests and motive in being actively involved in promoting the widespread adaptation of the education system. And once stated, and I quote, I don't want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers, Frederick t. T Gates, a prominent member of the General Education Board, also stated, we shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science, we have not to raise up from among them, authors, editors, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo, great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statements of whom we have an ample supply. There are even reports that Rockefeller and Industrial Giant, Andrew Carnegie played a significant role to influence the American education agenda to direct what students were taught in school. In 1914, the National Education Association alarmed by the activity of the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundation stated in their annual meeting, we view with alarm the activity of the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations agencies not in any way responsible to the people in their efforts to control the policies of our state education institutions to fashion after their contraception, conception,  to factor after their conception, and to standardize our courses of study and to surround the institutions with conditions which menace true academic freedom and defeat the primary purpose of democracy as here to four, preserved and violate in our common schools, normal schools and universities. So, Very interesting. It goes on to say that don't miss how one man brainwashed humanity to be mindless consumers, which was an excerpt from a brief History of education published in Psychology Today by Research Professor Peter Gray. So what we find there is the John, the, the Rockefeller Foundation implemented the general education board and the general education board. The idea, and, and, and then we talked about this when we almost go back to our very first episode, right? Um, ins, uh, uh, assassinations. Um, go, go back to the very first episode, and we find out that during the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, the, the whole movement away from allopathic mess or towards allopathic medicine from osteopathic and homeopathic medicine was all because of the Rockefeller Foundation. They pumped money in and, and made certifications and basically pushed out anybody that didn't align with the allopathic way of medicine. The allopathic way of medicine being the fact that your body. It has nothing to do with what's fighting the diseases and all you need is our pharmaceuticals, and that makes a much more profitable model. Right. So it was about structuring the way of education and medical pharmaceuticals in a way that allowed them to profit from it and, and to profit from you being a worker, not by you being a good thinker. Right. So with this article goes on to say from Psychology Today, um, says, if we want to understand why standard schools are what they are, we have to abandon the idea that they are products of logical necessity or scientific insight. They are instead, products of history. Schooling as it exists today only makes sense if we view it from a historical perspective. The idea and practice of universal compulsory public education developed gradually in Europe from the early 16th century on into the 19th century. It was an idea that had many supporters who all had their own agendas concerning the lessons that children should learn. Employers in the industry saw schooling as a way to create better workers. To them, the most crucial lessons were punctuality, following directions. Tolerance for long hours of tedious work and a minimal ability to read and write. So you guys can read more into that, but, but here's my position on all of it. We're, we're in a position now as a society where, where we can gain control, right? We, we have such an ease of access to information, such an ease of access to education. You don't need a school system. You don't need to go to public school to, to learn how to do math. You can find a hundred TikTok channels that'll teach you in, in a hundred million times more interesting ways how to do basic math. You can learn history by going to the history channel and watching a a hundred documentaries and learning 10 times more than you're gonna learn from some boring ass history professor who forgot everything from college and just is pushing papers at you so they can make an income. Everybody has the one, one teacher that they remember. Everybody. Shout out Mr. Perry. Everybody has the one teacher that they remember that actually cared about their students, that actually cared about their education. Right. And you remember them for a reason, right? You remember the impact that they made because they actually cared. But 90% of the teachers that you had didn't give a shit and probably don't remember you. Right? And so once we realized that we are so far gone from the times where the, the, the school library held the information and, and the, the universities were able to gate, keep knowledge, we're so far away from that. And there's far more information out there that you can leverage the technology that we have to move away from where you're, you have to be like, my, my sister goes to a university and she's taking a basic composition class and every single assignment that she's. Done. Every single paper that she's written has been interwoven in the fabric of indoctrination towards liberal ideology. And I talk with her about it almost every time I see her. She has to write a paper about why pronouns are a good thing. She has to write a paper about, uh, why, um, anti-racism is, is, is good for society, right? The idea of like white, uh, guilt, right? Like all of these things that she has to write papers on to learn how to, I don't know, have proper grammar and write a paper. I like, I don't buy the idea that I have to wholeheartedly buy into your political ideology to learn how to write a paper, right? It's, it's just horseshit. It's a way for you to pay money into the education system for them to teach your child things and indoctrinate them the way that they wanna push their political ideologies. Right? And, and, and so what, and, and so what this allude you to know too is that that's, that's the fundamentals of education. The fundamentals of education that lie in the idea that you have to follow their thought processes. Because if you think of education as a whole, right? You think of a baby just like a computer, right? Or, or, or a, a system, like an application that you're trying to program, right? You're, you're programming a child on how to think, right? The framework of, in structuring of thought is what you're teaching a child from the time you take them at literally four years old, five years old, you're putting them in a full-time job. This is one of the biggest reasons me and my wife decided to homeschool our children. There is no reason that my child needs a literal eight to 4:00 PM job Monday through Friday. There's no reason that my child needs that. I make enough money, thankfully, that my wife can stay home and teach my children. And if you don't have that, I get it, right? But you should strive for that independence and freedom, right? You should strive for that for your family. And so, And if your wife doesn't wanna do that, that's fine too. That's cool. But for me, that's important, right? I can give my wife and my children the ability to be around each other, and my child does not have to go get a full-time job to learn how to write English. My child does not have to get a full-time job eight to four every single day, Monday through Friday to learn how to read. No. There's hundreds of things that you can utilize. There's books. I have hundreds of books in my home right now that my child can use to learn how to read. There's however many applications on an iPad that is specifically built for your child to learn how to read, to learn how to do math, to learn how to write right. All of these tools are out there. Yet the reason that we as a country, as, as a society, as a culture are not utilizing them is because we've spent so ourselves indoctrinated into the idea that you turn five, you go to school now as a parent, you can throw your hands up, your job's easier. , right? But what you're missing by that is you are no longer the driver of your child's programming. How many articles, how many times have we seen teachers who have, who have been caught with far more explicit things than what we're talking about here? But even just pushing bad thoughts, right? Pushing bad ideology, pushing, you know, the, the L G B T Q stuff within a, a fifth, fourth, third, first grade class. There's no reason for that. You don't need to teach my child about sexuality. You don't need to teach, which is inherently from the root word of sex, right? You don't need to teach my child that, right? But by abdicating the responsibility of that eight to four timeframe every single day, you give them the right to do. So here's my thought is why not take that power back? Why not realize that it is easier now than ever to take control of your child's education, to take control of your child's programming? Because that is what is happening, is the programming. When you're teaching a child math, when you're teaching them science, when you're teaching them the scientific method, you're teaching them how to think. You're teaching them the framework of thought with math, it's the same reason the Gates Foundation was pushing hundreds of millions of dollars trying to confuse your children with common core for what you think. Bill Gates gives a shit about how your child divides 16 by 70, right? Like he doesn't care. You know what he does wanna do? He wants to program the way that your child's underlying programming and thought processes work for the remainder of their life. Right. That is why he's pushing hundreds of millions of dollars in the common core math. He wants to muddy up the waters of what's going on between your ears, your child's ears. Right? And you're allowing it. We're allowing it because we wanna make our lives easier. Homeschooling is easier than ever. There's so many resources, so many resources that you can utilize to teach your child and not give the, the ability for the state to literally program your child into a walking, talking factory worker from the rest of their lives. It's just so wild to me. It's so wild that that's how it goes. Like five years old. Five years old, you're gonna send your child to school, nine to five, eight to. , right? Like a full-time job at four years old. And you wonder why your kid's crabby and you have troubles with them at night, and they're acting up at school is because you want them to sit their butt in the chair all day when they should be running outside in the grass and playing. That's what your child should be doing, not sitting there trying to learn Bill Gates common core. So it's a really interesting topic that I want to dive deeper into. I'm gonna be finding somebody that I can pull into this conversation that knows far more about it than I do. But I do think that there's a really interesting conversation around the Prussian model, um, about how the, uh, Rockefeller Foundation pushed 129 million into formulating our current structure for school systems, right? Even if it's just the, the alarms of the factory, right? The bell. There's literally

John and Craig take a look at ‘writer fingerprints.' They break down how idiosyncratic choices make up an individual's style on-the-page and offer advice on how to mimic someone else's voice. Follow up includes pet rock, a defense of script consultants, the preface page in Tár, and the anti-“actually” mindset. In our bonus segment for premium members, we offer advice to a producer who needs help working with a writer who can't seem to finish — or deliver — a script. Links: Scriptnotes episodes with 2023 Oscar Nominees Sarah Polley, Rian Johnson, Daniels, Pamela Ribon Weekend Read Beta Try it out — now updated with all FYC scripts! Writing in another writer's style on John's blog with advice from Dara Resnick Creasey Algorithms were able to figure out that Robert Galbraith was JK Rowling Good Conversations Have Lots of Doorknobs by Adam Mastroianni The Case of The Golden Idol game Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt! Check out the Inneresting Newsletter Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription! Craig Mazin on Twitter John August on Twitter John on Instagram Outro by Luke Yoquinto, who discovered it in the score to Coming to America by Nile Rodgers (send us yours!) Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.   Email us at ask@johnaugust.com You can download the episode here.

Recorded Wednesday, 12, 2022 Book talk begins at 25:30 Sweater KAL - 9/1/22 - 1/15/23! Sweater KAL Chatter - rules are at the top of each page 12 in 22 Chatter Thread Virtual get-together Zoom   KNITTING Barb finished: Mother Bear #267 Choose Your Gnome Adventure by Sarah Schira Cristollo by Knitting for Breakfast   Tracie finished: Choose Your Gnome Adventure by Sarah Schira Davis Sweater by Pam Allen Mother Bears 298 and 299   Barb is working on: Irish Hiking Scarf by Adrian Bazilia, using Plymouth Encore Tweed in Red Socks for Will, using Berroco Comfort Sock in the Party Time colorway    And has cast on: Stashbusting Helix Hat by Jessica Rose in the same yarns (all Plymouth Encore) I used for my Choose Your Gnome Adventure Mother Bear #268   Tracie once again started working on: Archer by Elizabeth Doherty - redoing the bottom in Lisa Souza Deluxe Sock! in Cornflower   She continues to work on: Vanilla Sock in Canon Hand Dyes William Merino in Waterworld Sock Set Moon of My Life by Nadia Crétin-Léchenne adapted by Celia McAdam Cahill for a man in worsted weight yarn - in Universal Yarns Uptown Worsted in Granite and Berroco Vintage in Cotton Candy Cinna Top by Ksenia Naidyon, in 5 colors of Alchemy Silken Straw     BOOKS Barb read: On a Quiet Street by Seraphina Nova Glass - 4 stars Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout - 5 stars Fly Girl by Ann Hood - 4 stars Mishap or Murder?: True tales of mysterious deaths and disappearances by Eileen Ormsby - 3 stars   Tracie read: A Taste for Murder by Burl Barer and Frank C. Garadot - 3 stars The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith - 4 stars   Tracie recommends the Murdaugh Murders Podcast