I read Harry Potter for the articles

File this under annoying: I'm missing perhaps three of the most important albums I own. R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi-Fi, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Dave Matthews Band's Before These Crowded Streets. Each of those albums represents the band in peak form, and all three have mysteriously disappeared from my CD cases.

If this be the work of thieves, then let me be the first to say, kudos artful dodger, on thy keen taste! "E-Bow the Letter" is the finest thing Stipe has ever written, sonic mishmash has never sounded so great on Yankee, and Streets finds Dave at his most Miles Davis-ish. But dammit I want them back. Thief, why couldn't you have taken the very first album that I bought? You'd be doing both of us a huge favour.

I'll be making room shortly on the right sidebar for the new H.Po book, but in the meantime, McSweeney's has published the hilarious Things You Can Tell about the Plot of the Next Harry Potter Book just by Looking at the Cover Art.

Of course, the article refers to the regular cover for the book, and not the "adult" version. I like the thinking behind that: I read children's novels, and I judge books by their cover.