Today JK Rowling embarks on an exciting new career as a proper serious grown up writer with the release of The Casual Vacancy.
Details of the book - reviewed across the land today - were kept a closely-guarded secret for months, and the notoriously reclusive author only gave a tiny handful of interviews.
All of which adds to the sense that, for all millions of us know and love her words, we don't know an awful lot about her.
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To go a small way to addressing this problem, we present you with ten little-known facts about Rowling that might just surprise you...