but I don't find Rowling an excellent writer. She's competent, certainly, and I think her technical skills have improved immeasurably, but I can't subscribe to her elevation to the Pantheon which would include Tolstoi, Borges, Hemingway, Dumas or Dorothy Parker.

Numbers can't count...after all, Danielle Steele routinely outsells an Updike. Even in the children's lit category, for me she can't compete with Barrie or Edith Nesbit or even Susan Cooper.