Skip to main content

J.K. Rowling-Piers Morgan Twitter spat prompts one bookstore to take action

harry potter niantic announced
What on earth would motivate a bookshop owner in London to tweet — yes, tweet — the entire text of J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book to Piers Morgan?

First up, it’s fair to say that Rowling and Morgan have never been backward in coming forward when it comes to airing their respective opinions on Twitter.

The pair clashed on the social media service over the weekend after an incident on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher in which Morgan was told — in rather colorful language — where to go by a fellow guest, Australian comic Jim Jefferies. The former CNN anchor had been discussing President Donald Trump’s travel ban at the time.

Evidently not a fan of Morgan, Rowling took to Twitter to share her pleasure at witnessing the rebuke, which she described as being “as satisfying as I’d always imagined.”

Morgan wasted little time in hitting back, informing his followers that he’s never read any of Rowling’s Potter books.

With followers of both Rowling and Morgan getting involved, the spat caught the attention of a bookshop owner in London. Taking the side of the author, Simon Key decided to set about tweeting Morgan the entire text of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He’s so far posted around 300 of a planned 32,567 tweets.

Here’s the opener:

And the next one:

OK, you’ll have to follow the bookshop to see the rest. Or buy the book.

Key told Sky News he’s tweeting the text “because Piers clearly spends all day on Twitter staring at his timeline.”

The bookshop owner added, “He clearly needs a bit of a break from all the abuse, so as he mentioned that he hasn’t read any J.K. Rowling, rather then having to tear himself away from Twitter to read it, I’d tweet him.”

“Obviously I’m sending it in bite-size chunks, which hopefully he’ll be able to cope with, rather than giving him the daunting process of reading a whole book.”

Of course, Morgan was keen to have the last word, though to truly do so he’ll have to wait for all 32,567 tweets to land on his timeline first. Unless he blocks the bookshop, that is.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Twitter CEO claims platform had best day last week
A stylized composite of the Twitter logo.

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted on Monday that despite the current fuss over Meta’s new and very similar Threads app, Twitter had its largest usage day last week.

Subtly including the name of Meta’s new app, which launched to great fanfare last Wednesday, Yaccarino did her best to sing Twitter’s praises, tweeting: “Don’t want to leave you hanging by a thread … but Twitter, you really outdid yourselves! Last week we had our largest usage day since February. There’s only ONE Twitter. You know it. I know it.”

Read more
Meta brings cartoon avatars to video calls on Instagram and Messenger
Meta's cartoon avatars for Instagram and Messenger.

The pandemic was supposed to have made us all comfortable with video calls, but many folks still don’t particularly enjoy the process.

Having to think about what to wear, or how our hair looks, or even fretting about puffy eyes following another bout of hay fever can sometimes be a bit much, even more so if it’s an early-morning call and your brain is still in bed.

Read more
Twitter is now giving money to some of its creators
A lot of white Twitter logos against a blue background.

Some Twitter users are now earning money via ads in the replies to their tweets.

New Twitter owner Elon Musk announced the revenue-sharing program in February, and on Thursday some of those involved have been sharing details of their first payments.

Read more