No offense taken at all, Nik and co-Potter-haters!
Really.
I'm quite surprised, too, at how heated I have felt about all this. I think I've always had a very powerful desire to kick back at perceived intellectual snobbery, which is probably tied up with all sorts of my own 'stuff'!
I think at its heart, it's when people say things about JKR not being a 'proper writer', it makes me think, well, what bloody hope have I got, if this fantastically popular writer isn't somehow worthy of any respect? Despite the popular myths surrounding her, she didn't in fact get rejected by loads of agents. She was picked up instantly by an agent - it was a few publishers (fewer than people always quote) who turned the book down.
It's also a red rag for me, when people are dismissive of different tastes. I met a bloke once who said to me in a music dicussion, 'WHAT? How can you POSSIBLY not like Van Morrison? What's wrong with you?' and it has become a jokey phrase in our house now!
Not that this was what was happening here. Well, maybe a bit.

<Added>

PS...I mean about the 'superior' writers of such fiction!

I know what you mean. And it was unfair and arrogant of me to suggest that my opinion was right. People like different things, and that can only be a good thing.

Hope we're all still friends after this!

PS Hope one day one (if not more) of us will be able to turnround and say: my book's better than Rowling's - it's sold a gazillion copies!

I said the above as a disclaimer, because it is something I believe in. I still maintain there is a difference between plagiarism and being influenced by something, and Rowling is someway over the former mark. But I can accept people like and enjoy the books, and it's been so argued about (me included) that it is becoming a bit of a tired subject.

JB

Hey, wouldn't be great if international disputes could be sorted out in such a civilised way!

Too true!

I would just like to say, into this oasis of diplomacy, that money, or copies sold, is absolutely no indicator of talent. And true success can only be measured in terms of happiness.

JB

Oh, JB, Do give over!!!!

Caroline, you got me wrong. I'm not suggesting that at all. What I was saying was the nearest I get to sitting on the fence on this issue. A lot of adults get stick for liking Harry Potter, but if those adults don't read a great deal then who's to pick on them. You wouldn't go up to a ten year old and give him grief for it.

It's those adults who are well read and like Harry Potter who should be ashamed and picked on and hounded.

Tally-Ho

Exactly. Like me!

run, run, as fast as you can...

I think hounding, as it were, is against the law now isn't it? (wish someone would explain this to my two lurchers)
Hope so, because that means I can stick head above parapet and say that I too am a well-read adult who reads HP books (hello, Caroline!) as well as a whole lot of other children's books ancient and modern, better and worse written than HP. Not quite sure, when racing through the flabby bits of the stories, why I can't put them down, but there it is.

just going off back into my foxhole now...

<Added>

oh, and peace and love, everybody - haven't mastered smiley faces yet

My childrens books and Young Adult books outnumber my proper, grown up novels now. There is some brilliant stuff in the kids section of any bookshop.

Colin

Re: smileys - how do you do those little yellow and green ones?

: followed by a ) for a
; followed by a ) for a
and
: followed by a ( for a

not sure if there are any more on here. I started up another thread here

Colin M