Happy birthday, J.K.Rowling

It is the birthday of popular British writer J.K. Rowling (1965), who created the best-selling Harry Potter series. Her books have sold 400 million copies worldwide and she is among the wealthiest women in the United Kingdom. While she was writing the series she was divorced, recovering from the death of her mother, and a single parent living on public assistance. There are seven books in the series, the first of which was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997). Last year, she published a crime fiction novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling, under the pen name Robert Galbraith. She said it was liberating to avoid the hoopla and get feedback under another name. The book sold modestly until The Sunday Times revealed the author’s real name, then it shot to No. 1.