Books

"Every bit as reprehensible as Lord Voldemort’s unvarnished espousal of evil”

Just in time for Halloween, Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling published a new essay Friday about one of her greatest villains: the Hogwarts professor and witch, Dolores Umbridge.

The nasty Umbridge is one of the characters for whom Rowling “feel[s] the purest dislike,” according to the 1,700-word essay, posted to her website Pottermore (account required). “Her desire to control, to punish, and to inflict pain, all in the name of law and order, are, I think, every bit as reprehensible as Lord Voldemort’s unvarnished espousal of evil.”

Rowling also reveals that Umbridge is actually based on a real-life person, though the author is careful not to reveal her identity. She does reveal that “[t]he woman in question returned my antipathy with interest. Why we took against each other so instantly, heartily and (on my side, at least) irrationally, I honestly cannot say.”

Harry Potter fans have long been familiar with Umbridge and her cruel ways, as the character was first introduced in the 2003 novel Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. At the time, Umbridge was the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic.

But Rowling also reveals new details about Umbridge in her Pottermore essay, including the fact that Umbridge is a “half-blood”—the daughter of a wizard and a Muggle (a regular person). The author also writes that when Umbridge forced Harry, who was in detention at the time, to cut the words “I must not tell lies” onto the back of his hand, she became the only person other than Lord Voldemort to leave a permanent physical scar on the boy wizard.

In addition to the new essay about Umbridge, Rowling has also published more brand new writing to Pottermore for Halloween and to celebrate the launch of The Order of the Phoenix onto the website. The new entries include details about the creatures Thestrals, the history of the wizarding prison Azkaban, Rowling’s thoughts on professor Sybil Trelawney and an introduction to the wizarding practice of Naming Seers.

Read next: Harry Potter Site Teases New J.K. Rowling Story

Anne Rice is the author of 34 books, including The Vampire Chronicles.

An exclusive excerpt from Anne Rice's new novel, Prince Lestat

In the beginning were the spirits. They were invisible beings, heard and seen only by the most powerful sorcerers or witches. Some were thought to be malevolent; some were praised as good. They could find lost objects, spy upon enemies, and now and then affect the weather.

Two great witches, Mekare and Maharet, lived in a beautiful valley on the side of Mount Carmel, and they communed with the spirits. One of these spirits, the great and powerful Amel, could, in his mischief making, take blood from human beings. Tiny bits of blood entered the alchemical mystery of the spirit, though how no one knew. But Amel loved the witch Mekare and was ever eager to serve her. She saw him as no other witch ever had, and he loved her for it.

One day the troops of an enemy came—soldiers of the powerful Queen Akasha of Egypt. She wanted the witches; she wanted their knowledge, their secrets. This wicked monarch destroyed the valley and the villages of Mekare and Maharet and brought the sisters by force to her own kingdom.

Amel, the furious familiar spirit of the witch Mekare, sought to punish the Queen. When she lay dying, stabbed over and over by conspirators of her own court, this spirit Amel entered into her, fusing with her body and her blood and giving her a new and terrifying vitality. This fusion caused a new entity to be born into the world: the vampire, the blood drinker. Akasha became the first vampire, and her King, Enkil, the second. All vampires were descended from them.

At the dawn of the Common Era, an elder, a keeper of the Divine Parents, abandoned Akasha and Enkil in the desert for the sun to destroy them. All over the world young blood drinkers perished, burnt to death in their coffins, their shrines, or in their tracks as the sun shone on the Mother and Father. But the Mother and Father themselves were too strong to perish. And many of the very old ones survived as well, though badly burned and in pain.

A newly made blood drinker, a wise Roman scholar by the name of Marius, went down to Egypt to find the King and Queen and protect them so that no holocaust would ever again ravage the world of the Undead. And thereafter Marius made them his sacred responsibility. The legend of Marius and Those Who Must Be Kept endured for almost two millennia.

Lestat’s voice waked the Queen from millennia of silence and slumber. She rose with a dream: that she would dominate the world of human beings through cruelty and slaughter and become for them the Queen of Heaven…

Lestat once again wrote the story. He had been there. He had seen the struggle for power with his own eyes. He gave his testimony to everyone. The mortal world took no notice of his “fictions,” but his tales shocked the Undead. It became the legacy of all blood drinkers the world over to know they shared a common bond, a common history, a common root.

This is the tale of how that knowledge changed the tribe and its destiny forever.

Excerpted from PRINCE LESTAT by Anne Rice. Copyright © 2014 by Anne Rice. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

The spoof recipe book promises “No meth-in around”

Action figures may be off the table for your favorite Breaking Bad fan this holiday season, but thankfully, something even better is hitting the market: a Breaking Bad cookbook, titled — what else? — Baking Bad. (This project is so ripe for puns, it’s a wonder it’s taken this long for someone to cash in.) For starters, there’s the mysterious bestselling author’s pen name, Walter Wheat. Then there are the recipes within, from Ricin Crispie Treats to Fring Pops.

The publisher promises that the recipes are “98% pure but 100% edible,” no Hazmat gear required — a regular old apron should do the trick. Some of the concoctions, like Mr. White’s Tighty Whitey Bite gingerbread cookies, sound appealing. Others, like the Tortuga Tart — which features a slab of ham perched atop a turtle-shaped pastry — appear better suited for presentation than for gastronomic pleasure.

The book goes on sale on Nov. 6, but until then, you can get cooking with a handful of recipes on BuzzFeed UK. It’s probably prudent not to send your kid to school with Meth Crunchie cupcakes, but you can certainly enjoy them at home — with the promise of nothing more than a sugar high.

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In her new book, Jill Lepore explores how the suffragist movement, Fascism and the lie detector inspired the creation of the most popular female superhero of all time

Even the most devout Wonder Woman fanatics probably didn’t know that the heroine’s creator, William Moulton Marston, a psychologist, lived with and had children with two women at the same time. They also probably didn’t know that he had slightly strange theories about the benefits of bondage. Nor is it common knowledge that the character, which debuted in 1942, was inspired by the leaders of the suffragist movement.

In her new book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, which hits shelves Tuesday, New Yorker writer and Harvard professor Jill Lepore delves into the life of the man who created Wonder Woman. The book comes just as Wonder Woman is swooping back into the cultural consciousness with her invisible jet. Israeli actress Gal Gadot will play Wonder Woman in 2016’s Batman vs. Superman and will get her own solo film in 2017.

Here’s just some of what Lepore uncovered:

1. Wonder Woman was inspired by Margaret Sanger (and other suffragists)

Creator William Moulton Marston, a psychologist, was deeply interested in gender dynamics, women’s rights and the suffragist movement.

He also fell in love with one of his students at Tufts, Olive Byrne, who eventually lived in his house with him and his wife in a sort of polyamorous relationship. Byrne happened to be Sanger’s niece, and Byrne’s mother, Ethel, and Sanger together opened what eventually became the first Planned Parenthood in 1916.

When Marston hired a woman named Joy Hummel to help him write Wonder Woman, Olive Byrne handed her one book to use as background: Margaret Sanger’s Woman and the New Race.

2. There’s a reason she’s bound up all the time

A recurring plot point in the early Wonder Woman comics was that if the superhero was bound by a man in chains she would lose all her Amazonian powers. So Wonder Woman was bound—a lot. This choice was partly inspired by the suffragists who chained themselves to buildings during protests and used chain symbolism to represent men’s oppression of women. But Marston was also preoccupied, perhaps even obsessed with, bondage.

He had a theory that women enjoyed submission and bondage and teaching young girls of that virtue was one of the purposes of the comic: “This, my dear friend, is the one truly great contribution of my Wonder Woman strip to moral education of the young,” Marsten wrote to his publisher after he was accused of sadism. “The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being found—enjoy submission to kind authority, wise authority.”

Wonder Woman’s subjugation was extremely controversial: Wonder Woman was banned in the 1940s because of the overt sexual nature of both her dress and the sexual nature of her near-constant bondage.

3. Wonder Woman was partly a response to the rise of the Nazis

The first comic book superhero, Superman, hit the stands in 1938. But shortly thereafter, comics came under fire: critics said Superman could be interpreted as a fascist—an all-powerful ubermensch that would have a negative influence on American children. (Remember, the rise of the superhero coincides with the rise of Nazi Germany.) Parents demand that the books be burned.

Superman publisher, M.C. Gaines, reads an article written by Olive Byrne for Family Circle saying that comic books might be good for kids. Gaines asks Marsten to help him save comic books, and Marston recommends a female superhero, reasoning that comic books are too violent and need a touch of femininity. Enter Wonder Woman.

4. The Lasso of Truth had a real-life parallel in Marston’s life

In the Wonder Woman comics, the heroine’s Lasso of Truth forces anyone in its snare to be honest. The weapon was likely inspired by Marston’s own creation of the lie-detector test in 1913. The basic test consisted of taking someone’s blood pressure as they answered questions. Any elevation in blood pressure signaled a subject’s guilt. In 1923, Marston fought to have results of his updated lie detector test used in courtrooms. But the courts rejected the machine, citing too high a frequency of error.

Marston was none-too-happy with this conclusion. In an autobiographical moment in the comics, Wonder Woman tries to get confessions made with the help of her Lasso of Truth admissible in court.

5. Wonder Woman was designed as a feminist icon

Anyone who has read Wonder Woman comics will be able to recognize the feminist underpinnings of her story. But readers probably don’t know that Marston broke from the rest of popular culture by asserting not only that kids would be interested in reading a comic about a woman but that she would be essential to their education in teaching them about gender equality.

“Like her male prototype, ‘Superman,’ ‘Wonder Woman’ is gifted with tremendous physical strength,” Marston wrote in the press release announcing her creation. “‘Wonder Woman’ has bracelets welded on her wrists; with these she can repulse bullets. But if she lets any man weld chains on these bracelets, she loses her power. This, says Dr. Marston, is what happens to all women when they submit to a man’s domination.”

He concludes: “‘Wonder Woman’ was conceived by Dr. Marston to set up a standard among children and young people of strong, free, courageous womanhood; and to combat the idea that women are inferior to men, and to inspire girls to self-confidence and achievement in athletics, occupations and professions monopolized by men.”

6. Despite that, she started out in the Justice Society as a secretary

Wonder Woman was admitted to the Justice Society with heroes like The Flash and Green Lantern after a survey of comic book readers found that the vast majority of girls and boys wanted her there.

But in a 1942 comic penned by Justice Society writer Gardner Fox, all the superheroes get to go off to fight the Nazis, except for Wonder Woman who must stay home and reply to the mail. Marsten was, of course, infuriated by this turn of events.

7. Wonder Woman has run for president in the comic books twice

Wonder Woman ran for office in a comic book written by Marston in 1943, and then again in a cover story in Ms. magazine in 1972. She didn’t win either time. Maybe she should try for 2016.

The book will chronicle the singer's rise from childhood performer to international celebrity

Like many of her contemporaries in the entertainment industry, Beyoncé is a brand. And this brand has many facets: singer, dancer, entertainer, designer, philanthropist, wife, and mother.

Of course, Beyoncé is a person first, a brand second. But the force behind that brand — the carefully crafted public relations operation that helps rake in the cash — obscures the person that the brand is selling, presenting an altered facsimile of the person behind the brand. Consumers, meanwhile, are expected to equate that presentation with the person herself.

All of this is to say: today’s announcement that an unauthorized Beyoncé biography will hit bookstores in the fall of 2015 is welcome news for those interested in the woman behind the brand. Biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, who will write the book, is no stranger to the mega-celebrity profile; his subjects over the last three decades have included Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra, Madonna, and most famously, Michael Jackson.

But the key word in this soundbite is “unauthorized.” This means that Beyoncé herself won’t participate in the project, and the biography’s content will be gleaned from interviews with secondary sources. The word “unauthorized” suggests that we should probably take the book with some skepticism, because Queen Bey won’t have signed off on the story it spins. But the fact that she’s so tightly controlled her image until now leaves one wondering which version requires taking more grains of salt: the one she’s approved or the one she hasn’t?

Take, for example, the 2013 HBO documentary Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream, which was not only authorized, but featured heavy participation from its subject. The film purports to “strip away the veneer of stardom” and offer up the real Beyoncé in its stead. And it literally does strip away the makeup, offering a visual to match its stated goal. But for all its Neutrogena-clean wholesomeness, the production feels self-consciously manufactured. It swaps out the image of the diva for the equally fabricated image of the girl next door, one edited truth for another. Every revelation has been carefully weighed for the way it will land.

Following her mini-concert at the MTV Video Music Awards in August, Beyoncé accepted the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award from her husband, Jay-Z, with daughter Blue Ivy in tow. The trio was all tears and kisses, the picture of family harmony. The Twittersphere immediately launched into debate: Were the smiles genuine, or was the performance still going? Were we witnessing a publicity stunt staged to counter the tabloids’ insistence on trouble in paradise? Throughout Beyoncé’s career, it’s always been difficult to parse out the genuine from the affected.

In the Washington Post last week, Eve Fairbanks lamented what is sometimes lost when we switch from the third-person to the first. “All that sad and subtle truth, all the disconnect between how we imagine ourselves and who we really are — the disconnect that underpins the whole tragicomedy of human life — [is] lost,” she writes. “Sometimes the deepest truths are the ones we cannot ourselves quite face.” And that, in a nutshell, is why the unauthorized biography will probably tell us more about Beyoncé than the authorized one ever could.

Megan Gibson is a writer and reporter for TIME, currently based in London.

In his new book, Booker Prize winner David Nicholls examines how a husband and wife found themselves in a disintegrating union

David Nicholls knew One Day would be a tough act to follow. The 2009 tragic love story was not only an international best seller, it also spawned a Hollywood adaptation. It was so successful that Nicholls worried in a 2012 interview with The Independent that his follow-up might “disappoint” people.

Us is that follow-up and it hits U.S. shelves today. The novel, which centers on a marriage in trouble, has already received accolades and was even long-listed for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, so Nicholls apparently didn’t have much to worry about. Yet Us is also another love story, of sorts—as the narrator and hero Douglas Petersen says, “Certainly love comes into it”—and it’s hard to pick the book up without reflecting, even briefly, on its predecessor.

Yet once I got into Us, I wasn’t reminded of One Day, but instead of a different best-seller, one that also zeroes in on marriage: Gone Girl. Or, at least, a happier, lighter, more well-adjusted version of Gone Girl. No, David Nicholls hasn’t waded into murder mystery territory. Remember that while Gillian Flynn’s 2012 psychological thriller – and its David Fincher-directed big-screen adaptation – deals with crime and deception as much as it does with relationships, it also takes an in-depth look at the state of marriage and what years together can do to a couple. On the very first page, when Nick Dunne contemplates what his wife, Amy, is thinking, he asks himself, “What have we done to each other?”

In a much more benign way, that is also the central question at the heart of Us. While Douglas Petersen is a middle-aged biochemist with sensible tastes, his long-time wife Connie is a spontaneous and vivacious artist-type—Douglas’s complete opposite. The two also have a moody teenage son, Albie, who adores Connie, annoys Douglas and is about to head off for college. The book opens with Connie’s announcement one night that, after years together, she’s thinking of leaving Douglas. He’s railroaded by the news, but agrees to go along with her and Albie on a “Grand Tour” of Europe—Douglas’s final chance to win back his wife’s love and save his marriage.

If that sounds like a huge feat, Douglas is here to make the reader understand that he’s done it before. Between chapters describing the “Grand Tour,” Douglas goes back in time, to “Before Connie,” to recount how the couple first met, at a dinner party his sister throws. He is not only instantly smitten, he also immediately realizes that in order to attract anyone as edgy and arty as Connie, he might need to rethink his ordered, sensible life.

“[My] transformation began even before our second date,” he explains. “I had for some time been living the wrong sort of life and my drab flat in Balham was a reflection of this. The bare magnolia walls, the flat-pack furniture, the dusty paper lightshades and 100-watt bulbs. A woman as cool as Connie Moore would not stand for this. It would all have to go.”

But it’s not just his flat that Douglas feels the need to tweak to impress his future-wife. He describes delving into art, theater, novels and music – all things he’d previously been uninterested in – in order to entice and connect with Connie. In short, he tries to become a different person. It’s seemingly an extensive overhaul and somewhat reminiscent of Amy Elliot Dunne’s famous “Cool Girl” rant, in which she rages about the myriad ways women transform themselves into exactly who they think men want them to be, twisting themselves in knots in the process.

“Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2,” Amy fumes when recalling her courtship with Nick. “Men actually think this girl exists.”

Of course, while Amy’s description of the hoops she – and all women, or so she believes – must jump through in order to land a guy is nothing short of bitter, Douglas’s account of the lengths he goes to impress Connie is heartfelt. Unlike Amy, he doesn’t express disgust that such a performance is believed; he’s relieved. Even years later, when their marriage starts to wear thin, Douglas doesn’t seem to be bothered by the efforts he made for love. “I was grateful,” he reflects. “My wife educated me.”

Eventually, however, Douglas, like Amy before him, realizes that an act is unsustainable and, over the years, his real buttoned-up self shines through. The tedium of work and commuting and parenting and everyday life sets in. That may be where the relationship becomes more honest, but it’s also more susceptible to disenchantment and deterioration.

Though in both tone and genre Us and Gone Girl are seriously light years apart, each novel makes a serious attempt to excavate a marriage from the initial flirty courtship to the downward spiral and back again. Just as Flynn’s psychological mine-field has moments of levity and sweetness, Us takes us into the darker corners of the Petersens’ life together.

Luckily for the marriage in Us, Nicholls’ characters are nowhere near as vicious as those in Gone Girl (though Connie’s choice to break her husband’s heart before insisting he tour Europe with her seems pointlessly cruel). That doesn’t necessarily mean that Douglas and Connie’s marriage contract ultimately fares better than Nick and Amy’s, though I won’t spoil either book here. But for all of their burdens and battles, Douglas and Connie have moments of real joy in their marriage and while it doesn’t always seem like a pleasure, reading about it sure is.

The Parks & Rec star's new book, Yes Please, is out on Oct. 28

Amy Poehler’s new book, Yes Please is out today, and the title pretty much sums up everyone’s attitude when we heard the notoriously nice funnywoman was finally writing a book. An Amy Poehler book? Yes please! That’s probably where she got her title.

The Parks & Rec star explains where she got her title, in a winning yet insightful passage in the book’s introduction:

It’s called Yes Please because it is the constant struggle and often the right answer. Can we figure out what we want, ask for it, and stop talking? Yes please. Is being vulnerable a power position? Yes please. Am I allowed to take up space? Yes please. Would I like to be left alone? Yes please…”Yes Please” sounds powerful and concise. It is a response and a request. It is not about being a good girl; it is about being a real woman.”

But if you can’t pick up the book, or your bookstore is out of it, or you’re waiting in a line behind everyone else in the world and just want to know the highlights, here they are:

On hot sex tips:

In the “World Famous Sex Tips” chapter, Poehler has some choice advice for women and men about how to get it on:

For women:

Try not to fake it: I know you are tired/nervous/eager to please/unsure of how to get there. Just remember to allow yourself real pleasure and not worry about how long it takes…God punished us with the gift of being able to fake it. Show God who the real boss is by getting off and getting yours.

For men:

Be nice, tell your woman she is hot, never shame her, and never hurt her.

Also, she advises not to let your kids sleep in your bed, which is probably a good idea for both men and women.

On her mantra for women who make different choices:

Poehler describes the experience of giving birth to her first son, and making choices about delivery that were different from what her friends were doing (she opted for lots of drugs, not a “natural birth.”)

Good for her! Not for me. That is the motto women should constantly repeat over and over again. Good for her! Not for me.

Poehler also notes that her OB-GYN had delivered Sophia Loren’s children, which was fitting because she (Poehler) has “the Angelina Jolie of vaginas.” This celebrity gyno doesn’t end up delivering Poehler’s son, but you’ll have to read the book to find out why…

On motherhood, and why “every mother needs a wife:”

Poehler has an excellent chapter on motherhood, titled “Every Mother Needs a Wife.” At first, she gets into the down-and-dirty of the mommy wars (perfectly lampooning the subtle digs of working and stay-at-home moms.)

“The ‘I don’t know how you do it’ statement used to get my blood boiling. When I heard those words, I didn’t hear ‘I don’t know HOW you do it.’ I just heard ‘I don’t know how you COULD do it.’ I would be feeling overworked and guilty and overwhelmed and suddenly I would be struck over the head by what felt like someone else’s bullsh*t. It was an emotional drive-by. A random act of woman-on-woman violence…

But then Poehler gets to what she actually means by “every mother needs a wife.” The chapter ends with a touching tribute to the nannies who care for her children, similar to the tear-jerking toast she gave at the TIME100 gala in 2011. These women, she says, are her wives.

“Do you know how I do it? I can do it because I have a wife. Every mother needs a wife… Some mothers’ wives are their mothers. Some mothers’ wives are their husbands. Some mothers’ wives are their friends and neighbors. Every working person needs a wife who takes care of her and helps her become a better mother… the biggest lie and biggest crime is that we all do this alone and look down on people who can’t.

On divorce:

True to form, Poehler doesn’t dish any juicy details at all about her 2013 divorce from comedian Will Arnett, but does write insightfully about how difficult the process was.

“Imagine spreading everything you care about on a blanket and then tossing the whole thing up in the air. The process of divorce is about loading up that blanket, throwing it up, watching it all spin, and worrying what stuff will break when it lands.

She notes that she isn’t going to get into any specifics, because it’s “too sad and too personal,” but she will say this:

“I am proud of how my ex husband, Will, and I have been taking care of our children; I am beyond grateful he is their father and I don’t think a ten-year marriage constitutes failure. That being said, getting a divorce really sucks. But as my dear friend and relationship sponsor Louis CK has noted, “divorce is always good news because no good marriage has ever ended in divorce.

On awards shows:

Poehler has been nominated for many acting awards (mostly for Parks & Rec, although she was nominated for two Emmys for her time at SNL, and for some movies). Although she has not yet won an Emmy for Parks & Rec, she is known for staging “bits” with other nominees to take some of the pressure off who wins. Here’s why:

“The worst part of being nominated for any award is that despite your best efforts, you start to want the pudding. You spend weeks thinking about how it doesn’t matter and it’s all just an honor, and then seconds before the name of the winner is announced everything inside you screams… “GIMME THAT PUDDING!!” Then comes the adrenaline dump, followed by shame.

She describes all the various stunts she’s pulled at awards shows, from wearing fake mustaches to pretending to be in a beauty pageant to switching speeches with Julia Louis Dreyfus, to a fake flirtation with George Clooney.

“The lessons? Women are mighty. George Clooney loves bits. Doing something together is often more fun than doing it alone. And you don’t always have to win to get the pudding.”

On doing drugs:

She’s pretty open about her drug use, which is kind of awesome. The verdict: weed rocks, cocaine feels great but terrible the next day, and everything else ruins lives.

“In my twenties I tried cocaine, which I instantly loved but eventually hated. Cocaine is terrific if you want to hang out with people you don’t know very well and play Ping-Pong all night. It’s bad for almost everything else… The day after cocaine is rough…The next day is the thing I can’t pull off anymore. How do you explain to a four-and-six-year old that you can’t play Rescue Bots because you have to spend all day in bed eating Cape Cod potato chips and watching The Bicycle Thief?

But is she worried that her kids will read the book and think drugs are okay? Nah.

“What’s more boring than your own mother’s take on her own life? Yawn. Also, I am counting on everyone living on the moon by the time my children are teenagers, and that they’ll have really interesting space friends who are kind and good students and think drugs are lame and “totally, like, Earthish.”

More, please!

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