Harry Potter readers hated George W. Bush, new research suggests

Why do some millennials hate George W. Bush?

A new book by a political science professor, based on a national survey of 1,100 college students conducted over a three-year period, suggests it could have something to do with Harry Potter.

According to Anthony Gierzynski's "Harry Potter and the Millennials: Research Methods and the Politics of the Muggle Generation," readers of J.K. Rowling's seven-book series — and viewers of the movie franchise based on them — tend to be "more open to diversity; politically tolerant; less authoritarian; less likely to support the use of deadly force or torture; more politically active; and are more likely to have a negative view of the Bush administration."

A staggering 83 percent of respondents who read all of the Harry Potter books said they viewed the Bush administration unfavorably. And roughly 60 percent said they voted for Barack Obama in 2008, the first year most of them were old enough to vote.

When Bush left office in January 2009, 59 percent of Americans disliked him, according to Gallup. In June, however, the same poll showed 49 percent of Americans now view Bush as favorable, with 46 percent viewing him unfavorably.

According to Gierzynski, who teaches at the University of Vermont, the majority of the 1,100 students who took his survey were the same age as the characters in the series — or about 11 — in 1997, when the first Harry Potter book was released.

“Whether the book provided new perspectives or reinforced those already in their world," Gierzynski writes, "the deep immersion in the story and identification with the characters almost guaranteed an alignment of fans’ perspectives with those of the wizarding world, perspectives that would differentiate them from their nonfan peers." In other words, Harry Potter fans seem to be more socially tolerant — and liberal:

To test whether the acceptance of diversity by Harry and his friends mirrored that of readers, for example, respondents were asked how they felt about groups who have been subject to discrimination in the United States including Muslims, African Americans, undocumented immigrants and homosexuals. Respondents were asked to rate their feelings on a four-point “feeling thermometer” with zero being “very cold or unfavorable feeling” and four representing “100 degrees, very warm or favorable feeling.” After adding up each respondent’s total feeling scores toward all of the groups and comparing the results to non-fans, Gierzynski found that readers of all the books, as compared to the rest of the sample, evinced statistically significant warmer feelings toward the different groups.

It's entirely possible that the same Harry Potter fans would view the Obama administration, or any administration, unfavorably, too. And Gierzynksi acknowledges that it is "impossible to prove that the Harry Potter phenomenon caused fans to view politics in ways that reflect the lessons of the books."

"But," he concludes, "the results of the more rigorous statistical tests that we report on, as well as the words of millennials themselves on this issue, leave us confident that the story of the struggles of the wizarding world against Voldemort did indeed play an important role in the political development of many millennials.”

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Could school gate politics replace mommy porn for women readers?

By Belinda Goldsmith

LONDON (Reuters) - A British writer whose debut novel about mothers at the school gate sparked a seven-way bidding war between publishers has attributed the overnight success of her book to striking a chord with women used to negotiating the politics of female groups.

The hype around "The Hive" led to Gill Hornby being described as publisher Little Brown's "most important new author of 2013" and NBC Universals' arthouse Focus Features snapped up the film rights even before the book's release on May 23.

Hornby said she was slightly bemused by all the attention for her book which hit the top 10 bestselling fiction list in the UK in its first week, drawing comparisons to the huge success of EL James's "Fifty Shades of Grey" series last year.

After all it is Hornby's first novel although she is far from new to publishing. She is married to Robert Harris, best-selling author of thrillers like "Enigma" and "Archangel" and her brother Nick Hornby wrote "High Fidelity" and "Fever Pitch".

Hornby, who has four children aged 12 to 22, said the book took her two years to write but was in her head for years.

"I've always been very conscious about the groups girls and women make but I was too busy living the life to write about it," Hornby told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"This book is based at a school but really it is about women and their relationships .. about ordinary, domestic life."

"The Hive" is based at a fictional school, St Ambrose Primary, in a smart English rural town, which has a new headmaster and a group of mothers committed to raising funds for his plan to build a new school library.

The fund-raising is led by the undisputed queen bee Beatrice while Heather desperately tries to be more popular and other mothers steer clear or unintentionally fuel the rivalries, one-upmanship and smugness that comes with mother-led school group.

As the cliques swerve the lunch ladder and car boot sale, the school year becomes the backdrop of various life-changing events from broken relationships, depression, to cancer scares.

Hornby, a columnist with the Daily Telegraph until 2010, said the characters were based on the six roles outlined in Rosalind Wiseman's 2002 book "Queen Bees and Wannabes" that dealt with girls' friendships and conflicts.

The six are the Queen Bee, the sidekick, wannabe, floater, target, and torn bystander.

"The book is not autobiographical and not revenge against anybody. I've always been an amused observer," said Hornby,

Hornby is working on her second book about another group of women in the same town who are 15 years older with departed children and downplays "The Hive" being hailed as starting a new genre for women who are the main buyers of fiction.

Publishers have been trying to second guess the next big trend among women readers after the phenomenal success last year of "Fifty Shades of Grey" which appealed to a wide group of older women no longer interested in the shelf loads of chicklit.

"After mummy porn, mumlit?" asked the Guardian newspaper.

"I do worry about people comparing it to "50 Shades" because there is no sex at all in my book," said Hornby.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)

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