Book News, In Brief

The New York City cottage where writer Edgar Allan Poe lived is slated for renovation and will be closed for a year -- something about a strange, heartbeat sound coming from the floorboards. Details can be found at the CBC.

Our best wishes go out to the owners, staff and patrons of fellow indie bookstore, Bunch of Grapes, over on Martha's Vineyard. This past 4th of July, a fire next door spread to the bookstore, seriously damaging it. The good news: Bunch of Grapes plans to rebuild.

We're in an election year, which means we're about to be inundated with a million different Best Of lists pertaining to every nuance of democracy. We already did our list months ago (Top 5 Election Books), but here's one from The Washington Post: Fightin' Words: Five Memorable Revolutionary Books.

Over at the venerable Guardian UK (it's where I steal an inordinate amount of my daily links from), writer Mark Hooper argues that sometimes the best way to bring a book to life is to first watch its film adaptation. (Methinks he's smitten by Beowulf's amber colored Angelina Jolie.) (Methinks me is, too.)