J.K. Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard: Worth Buying?

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We don’t know who Beedle the Bard is, but chances are, if you’re a Harry Potter fan, you know about his book of fairy-tales that came out today.

And since J.K. Rowling knows fans will buy anything that keeps the Harry Pottery dream alive, she has teamed up with Amazon, Scholastic and Bloomsbury to release a special reproduction of the original bound volume of The Tales of Beedle the Bard , which comes embellished with silver ornaments and mounted moonstones.

Of course, you can only get this collector’s item if you fork over $100.

Don’t think it’s worth it? Well, if you get the Collector’s Edition, you will also receive an exclusive reproduction of J.K. Rowling’s handwritten introduction, as well as ten ready-for-framing prints of her illustrations. Plus some notes from Dumbledore himself! Still not convinced? What kind of a Harry Potter fan are you?!?

Yeah, don’t worry, we get it. While all proceeds from the sale go Rowling’s charity (and there’s also a standard edition available for seven dollars), this whole thing seems overly opportunistic.

The Guardian has already live-blogged their reading of the book (yup) and was overall disappointed that there were no Harry Potter-related revelations and admitted that the whole “Hermione really translated these herself!” gimmick is kind of annoying.

The way Amazon is handling the sales is also already pissing some angry muggles off — message boards are flooded with complaints from people who pre-ordered but were screwed out of a discounted or autographed copy. At least they’ll have a reproduction of J.K. Rowling’s handwriting to look forward to.

With Stephanie Meyers currently filling the coveted space of unlikely tween author turned happy millionairess, don’t you think it would be a good time for Rowling to bring her A game?