Confessions of a new Harry Potter fan. Kathryn Ross of the Daily Reporter writes: “Okay, I read “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”, and yes I’m a more than 50-year-old college graduate with a degree in literature. That’s out of the way. I enjoyed the book. I decided I wanted to read Harry Potter, because …read more!

Today’s leading-edge visual effects might not all blow your mind with spectacular explosions, lasers, spaceships and fantastic visions. But they will show you something you haven’t seen before – and make you believe it’s real. Matthew JC. Powell reports. Twins juggle friends, school, sports and insulin shots: The twins are eighth-graders at Swartz Creek Middle …read more!

News from HPGalleries JK Rowling’s former science teacher, who apparently was used as a model for the character of Severus Snape, wrote an article for HPGalleries, “On Being Snape-ish.” We get dozens of email questions every day, please find our answers to the meaningful, best, oddest or most interesting questions in our weekly eMailBag As …read more!

The second Harry Potter film, The Chamber of Secrets, is going to be “really, really, really good” according to Chris Rankin – the actor who plays Percy Weasley. The Oxford University Press will bring out Urdu translations of The Elementary Learner’s Dictionary, The Concise Oxford Dictionary, and of great English classics such as Portrait of …read more!

From the Times (UK): The phone rings. It is Denis MacShane, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister and not, as I had hoped, Mike McShane, the Canadian comedian. It is a good story nonetheless. On Armistice Day last year MacShane was chosen to accompany Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. “I remember she talked a lot …read more!

Even more new DVD features: * New scenes created especially for the DVD. * An interactive ”virtual tour” that lets users navigate through Hogwarts’ Great Hall, Gryffindor Common Room and other locations. * Interviews with producer David Heyman and director Chris Columbus. * A game that lets viewers learn Quidditch and catch a ”Snitch” with …read more!

Thanks to reader Amanda for this: In this month’s Issue of Realm there an entire section devoted to the locations of some of the Harry Potter scenes… Spiffing pictures, aerial views of Chepstow Castle in South Wales, The outside of the library in Oxford…. at the end if gives the addresses and phone numbers of …read more!

Just to make this perfectly clear: The item below about HP5 being published in May was an April Fool’s Joke. C’mon guys, be a little Fred and George about it, would ya? It’s far better than the false alarms we get from the real publishing people! 🙂

Harry Potter might be crowned king of the video realm this spring. Anticipation is mounting that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, coming to VHS and DVD May 28, could become the top-selling video of all time, surpassing the 30-million-unit mark and nudging The Lion King, current record holder, from the top spot it has …read more!

A surge in applications to a Perthshire boarding school is being attributed to the success of the Harry Potter novels. College isn’t usually a popular time for pleasure reading – students’ rooms are already piled with heavy tomes on subjects like tax law or microbiology. But when the hankering for unassigned reading does come, it’s …read more!