A real estate blog has calculated the approximate value of Hogwarts, and you might be surprised to learn that it’s worth only a fraction of a real life abode in Mumbai, and only about three times more than one in Orlando.
Pricey Pads
Amazon: criticism you can count on
A study of the top 100 non-fiction titles between 2004 and 2007, and the major media and Amazon reviews for each title, yields some fascinating results: “experts and consumers agreed in aggregate about the quality of a book.”
Remembering the Novel
If novels are written to remind us of our mistakes and we keep repeating those mistakes, why read novels at all?, asks Alberto Manguel. Richard Lea discusses authors’ views on the relationship between the novel and memory at The International Forum on the Novel.
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James Baldwin, the Expat
Over at Buzzfeed, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah travels to James Baldwin’s home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, and explores his life as an expat. She writes, “Baldwin left the States for the primary reason that all emigrants do — because anywhere seems better than home.” Pair with Justin Campbell Millions essay on Baldwin and fatherhood.
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It’s Not TV. It’s F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Deadline reports that Hunger Games screenwriter Billy Ray has plans to adapt F. Scott Fitzgerald’s final, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, into a series for HBO.
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Extremely Ephemeral Fiction
Andrew Fitzgerald wants to write “extremely timely fiction, nearly ephemeral.” He wants to write “a story not just set in the present, but set in this very week.” However in order to do that, he’s going to need our help. Check out his full write-up of A March Story on Medium, and then participate via Twitter.
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Louisiana: Where Music Was Born
Riffing on R&B singer Ernie K-Doe’s one-time statement, Chris Rose writes in the Oxford American, “I’m almost positive that all music, at least all American music, comes from Louisiana.” The essay appears in this year’s OA Southern Music Issue, a reliably excellent source of tunes and writing. Indeed, as Dwight Garner put it in The New York Times, the CDs that accompany each annual issue “practically belong in the Smithsonian.”
Gough’s Tale
Recommended Reading: Janet Maslin on Peter Carey’s Amnesia. You could also read our own Garth Risk Hallberg on Carey’s His Illegal Self.
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