Over the past few years, the Movoto Real Estate blog has become the internet’s number one destination for appraising the real estate in the Harry Potter universe. First they estimated the value of Hogwart’s Castle to be around $204 million, and now they’ve turned in an estimate of the Weasley family’s Burrow near Ottery St. Catchpole.
Muggles Appraising Wizards
Tuesday New Release Day: Wright, Santoro, Black
Lawrence Wright’s exposé of Scientology, Going Clear, is out today. Also out are The Boy by Lara Santoro and debut novel The Drowning House by Elizabeth Black. Our recently published Most Anticipated books of 2013 has much more about what’s still to come this year.
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Curiosities
Who killed the literary critic?: “In the age of blogging, great critics appear to be on life support. Salon’s book reviewers discuss snobbery, how to make criticism fun and the need for cultural gatekeepers.” The ongoing, seemingly never ending discussion of the death of literature and criticism continues, though Salon’s interest in “how to make criticism fun” is a promising sign.Online used book marketplace AbeBooks looks at the yearbook collecting subculture. The most expensive yearbook to every be sold on the site? The Ole Miss Yearbook 1921 containing “William Faulkner’s poem, ‘Nocturne,’ in facsimile of the author’s stylized printing over a two-page spread along with several Faulkner drawings.”Buzz presents the Nixon Rock on his Madonna of the Toast blog.Carolyn has been on an enviable literary-themed roadtrip. Luckily we can read along at home.
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Double Threat
As if demonstrating exemplary literary skill weren’t enough, some overachieving authors were accomplished visual artists as well, notes AbeBooks in a roundup of talent that includes e e cummings, Günter Grass, Herman Hesse, and Jack Kerouac. Consider also our own Bill Morris on artists who channel writers in their own aesthetics.
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My Brah Horatio
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So Much Drool
Sorry for the mess but we’re still drooling over these photos of A Brief History of Seven Killings author Marlon James‘s Minneapolis loft. Slightly less glamorous but (we think) of equal literary importance, these pictures of our own writing spaces.
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