‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’ (Book)

Just in time for the holidays, J.K. Rowling has given Harry Potter fans a little gift.

No, not a new book about the young wizard — THAT would be like a birthday combined with Christmas! Instead, she’s written a charming confection of a book from the world of Harry Potter with the sparkle and wit that remind us why she became a publishing sensation.

The title of the book, “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” should be instantly familiar to all Potter fans. That was the book Harry’s friend Hermione Granger was bequeathed after the death of headmaster Albus Dumbledore. One tale in the collection of children’s stories played a part in Harry figuring out how to destroy his enemy, the evil Lord Voldemort.

Following the publication of the last of the Potter books last year, Rowling created seven copies of the Beedle book, writing and illustrating the five stories. She gave six of the copies to friends and the last one to the Children’s High Level Group, a charity she helped create. The charity auctioned the book, which Amazon bought for $4 million, and has released an edition for the general public to raise more money.

In this edition, Rowling tells us, the tales were translated from the Ancient Runes by none other than Hermione. And adding a special flair, the stories are accompanied by notes from Dumbledore, expounding on their larger meaning.

‘Day & Age’ (Music)

With the release of the Killers’ latest album, “Day & Age,” the obvious question is whether Brandon Flowers and company continue to chase the panoramic, mythic grandeur of Springsteen and U2, critics be damned? Or, having experienced the sting of critical backlash, will they play it safe and make a collection of those dance floor ditties they seem to churn out with ease?

The answer isn’t quite so easy. On the surface, the answer would seem to be that the Killers are retreating from their epic ambitions and heading for safer ground. Those the-whole-world-depends-on-this-moment lyrics are largely missing, as are those majestic climaxes and crescendos that were everywhere on “Sam’s Town.” Indeed, “Day & Age” is an album devoid of pomposity, both lyrically and sonically. That’s not to say the album doesn’t have its climactic moments — the completely sublime “A Dustland Fairytale” has all of those qualities — but they’re certainly fewer.

The inescapable conclusion is this: “Day & Age” is the most consistent, confident album the Killers have created so far. While there are just as many influences floating through this album as there were on “Hot Fuss” and “Sam’s Town,” they have finally congealed into a unified whole.

‘Scene It?’ (Game)

The “Scene It?” trivia game series may have started as a DVD-based board game, but the franchise is really coming into its own on the Xbox 360 console.

Microsoft’s “Scene It?: Box Office Smash” ($60 bundled with four “Big Button” controllers; $40 standalone) builds on the game’s first Xbox 360 edition with new question genres, faster-paced gameplay and the ability to appear as your newly created Xbox Experience avatar.

The party game allows up to four local players to compete through three rounds of such challenges as unscrambling letters to form an actor’s name, arranging four films in order of their release dates or answering a series of questions based on a high-definition movie clip.

Dueling voice-over announcers pipe in with comments throughout the contest, but the hosts are not nearly as witty and sarcastic as those from the old “You Don’t Know Jack” PC games of the mid-1990s.

The game will work with the standard Xbox 360 controllers, but the bundled “Big Button” gizmos add to the game-show atmosphere.

Downloadable question packs are planned, and that could give this game an even longer shelf life.