Today’s Washington Post has a story on the editor who acquired the first Harry Potter book in the U.S. Arthur Levine had read the galleys of the British edition, so it wasn’t like he could claim that he discovered J.K. Rowling, but he can certainly claim a level of perspicacity in paying $105,000 for a first novel by an unknown kiddie lit author. Pretty damn smart! When he worked at Putnam, Levine helped the "Redwall" books get published. When he worked at Knopf, he bought Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy. So no matter where he worked, he struck gold.

If you’ll notice, they’re all fantasies.