The Third Roving Ranger

Please always refer to the International Tolkien Fellowship Facebook group for Tolkien-inspired events the world over.

Reviews and Book News

Quite a few reviews have come up on John Garth’s latest, Tolkien’s Worlds. Hear it from the man himself with the Bookmonger podcast.

Other Stuff

One of the most heinous companies out there is going public: Business Insider has the news on Palantir.

A young gentleman found a very special book, bought it for 50p and sold it for £16,000.

In Spain you can now follow the “Path of the Ring”, if my Spanish is not mistaken. The website for ‘El Camino del Anillo’ is in Spanish only but it offers some nice sights. As the Laudato Si Foundation is the sponsor one may expect theological discussions to boot.

At Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania there is a course on Tolkien and Pullman and their literary roots. Interesting reading list.

At the time of writing this nonsense tweet about the Ring of Silvianus has garnered more than 16,000 retweets. John Garth answered to it but according to Brandolini’s Law it is an unfortunate fact that these inventions never go away – the story is almost twenty years old and still not true.

Tolkien: Voyage en Terre du Milieu, BNF, Paris

Film franchise, merchandise and Amazon series

I always love when people sell their products clearly tailored to their customers – in this case you can get a Mulburry Burrow House – Fairy/Gnome/Hobbit, all rolled into one. Please

Please note: Links are not endorsements or advertisements, unless otherwise clearly stated. And I would not advertise a house that would welcome fairies, gnomes AND hobbits. *g*

By the way: If you ever wanted to have a hobbit hole for your kids or your chicken, Wooden Wonders would be the place for you.

As the Amazon series has still nothing substantial to show for NME needed to regurgitate the old story of one of the ‘drop-outs’ of the series, Will Coulter. Reason: schedule clash, nothing spectacular.

In other news

The first ever such conference – as far as I know – on Terry Pratchett is taking place in September via Trinity College, Dublin. It is online and free, you only need to register here. The schedule has already been announced with interesting talks aplenty.

Also on Pratchett: There will be a collection of early material, non-Discworld-related. Please note that Pratchett made clear during his lifetime there would be no new novels from him post-mortem – in fact, ten unpublished books on his hard drive were steamrollered as per his wish.

If you have not heard yet: George R.R. Martin mentioned his final ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ volume might actually be published soon-ish.

The Blog Roll

These are blogs you really should be following if you’re interested in Tolkien …

Some of these, you may find, are not as active as one would hope; but even if they have not posted anything new for a long time they are repositories of great essays and research on all things Tolkienian and always worth your time. The blog roll – and this very newsletter! – has been inspired by Troels Forchammer’s Parma-kenta and his excellent Tolkien Transactions he did for seven years – they are still sorely missed!

Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, ‘Too Many Books and Never Enough’
Dimitra Fimi, ‘Dr. Dimitra Fimi’
Jason Fisher, ‘Lingwë — Musings of a Fish’
Douglas A. Anderson, ‘Tolkien and Fantasy’
John D. Rateliff — ‘Sacnoth’s Scriptorium’
John Garth, ‘John Garth’
David Bratman, ‘Kalimac’s Journal’
Jenny Dolfen, ‘Jenny’s Sketchbook’
Andrew Higgens, ‘Wotan’s Musings’
Anna Smol, ‘A Single Leaf’
Edmund Weiner, ‘Philoloblog’
Robin Anne Reid, her blog
Annalisa Palmer, her blog
Various, The Mythopoeic Society
Various (Bradford Eden, ed.) Journal of Tolkien Research (JTR)
Various, The Tolkien Society (TS)
Southfarthing Mathom
Various, The Mythopoeic Society, ‘The Horn of Rohan Redux’
Sue Bridgwater, ‘Skorn’
Tom Hilman, ‘Alas, not me’
Michael Martinez, ‘Middle-earth’
Bruce Charlton, ‘Tolkien’s The Notion Club Papers’
Various, ‘Middle-earth News’
Jeffrey R. Hawboldt, ‘Expressions of Substance’
Ryszard Viajante Derdzinski, ‘Tolknięty’
Stephen C. Winter, ‘Wisdom from The Lord of the Rings’
Troels Forchhammer, ‘Parma-kenta‘
Marcel Aubron-Bülles, ‘The Tolkienist‘
Jeremy Edmonds, ‘Tolkien Collector’s Guide‘
Aubrey, ‘Diverse Tolkien‘
Elyanna, ‘itariilles‘

Pictures credits: Photos taken by my during the first week of the most successful exhibition ever at the French National Library, Tolkien: Voyage en Terre du Milieu.