Rowling & Funke

Hi!
I'm German, but since English is an international language and more people will be able to read it, I'm going to keep this blog mostly in English (please forgive any spelling/wording mistakes).

So, the purpose of this blog, like you can see on my profile, is to talk about German and British books and especially get people to talk about it and connect.
I'm pretty new to this. I've only had one blog before (about my exchange year) and that was different, so I'm just going to see how this goes and hoping for the best :-)
Please, feel free to leave comments! You can give your opinions on the topics or  tips for me on what I can do better!

On to the first topic:
I'm a big book nerd! As you can see from the title of this blog, two of my favorite authors are J.K. Rowling and Cornelia Funke.

Everybody knows Rowling and  Harry Potter (I hope!). It's my favorite book or even more than that: It's my childhood! (Sorry, I hope you don't think I'm crazy^^) But with Harry Potter, Rowling has created more than just a book, it's a world! There are so many people around the world that have read those books - like Dumbledore once said: "Every child in our world will know his name", which is probably almost true :-) I don't want to turn this into a Harry Potter blog, but it is really important to me and I wanted to let you guys know who you're dealing with :-)
What about You? Do you like Harry Potter? Are you Potterheads? ;-)

Have any of you read "The Casual Vacancy", the new book by Rowling? I read it and I really liked it, though it was really different from Harry Potter (especially the vulgarit). But it was a very interesting and good story in my opinion.
I know (almost) nobody who read the book, so if any of you did read it, what do you think about it?

Maybe less well-known is Cornelia Funke, who is German (although she is currently living in L.A.).
I grew up reading her books, from "Igraine ohne Furcht", "Wilden Hühner", "Drachenreiter"/ "Dragonrider", "Herr der Diebe"/ "Thief Lord" to "Tintenherz"/ "Inkheart","Reckless"and much more. I just love those books and even though they are mostly for younger children, I'm still enjoying them today. They are just so beautifully written and can always take me away to different worlds. I have so many happy memories connected with those books :-)
I don't know how well known she is in Britain or other parts of the world, although her books are translated into many other languages.
Do you know/like Funke? Which books have you read? Which are your favorites?

This two authores are two of my favorites and their books have influenced me and have a very special place in my heart (saddly not on my bookshelf since that is too full and not very organised^^) and that's why I wanted to start my blog with a post about them.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and maybe are leaving some thoughts in the comments! I'm looking forward to it!