Tagged: Lord of the Rings

Books and Reading / Featured

Announcing the 2024 Fantasy Classics Chapter-a-Day Read-Along

Welcome to the official sign-up post for a very special 2024 Chapter-a-Day Read-along! This year we we will be reading some of the most beloved modern classics in all of literature: The Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and the entire Harry Potter series. All three series are in the top ten of the PBS list of America’s 100 most-loved books, and are adored by readers the world over. And, since 2024 is a leap year, we get an extra day to read! Long-time participants will notice...

Fantasy Castle

Books and Reading

Flights of Fantasy 2017 Reading Challenge Wrap-up

The Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge motivated me to read some books that had been on my TBR list for many years, and it also enabled me to re-read some of my favorites. Fantasy was my first favorite genre, but I haven’t read a lot of it lately because it seems to have lost its magic, as I wrote about several weeks ago. In fact, all of the fantasy I read this year was written before 1993. My year in fantasy fiction began with a fantastically original series...

The Balrog - Ted Naismith (detail)

Books and Reading

The Ring Goes South by J.R.R. Tolkien

This is not so much a review as a progress report. After a fantastic start to my 2017 Reading Challenges, things have slowed down quite a bit. I’m still keeping up with the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings Readalong, however, and according to Goodreads I’m still seven books ahead of my overall schedule for the year. I’ve just finished The Ring Goes South, part two of The Fellowship of the Ring in the Millennium edition. I have to say that I’m really enjoying reading The Lord of the Rings in these smaller...

Tolkien Reading Day

Books and Reading

Tolkien Reading Day 2017

It’s almost Tolkien Reading Day! Held annually on March 25th, Tolkien Reading Day is an annual event to celebrate works of author J.R.R Tolkien. According to the Tolkien Society, Tolkien Reading Day is held on the 25th of March each year. It has been organised by the Tolkien Society since 2003 to encourage fans to celebrate and promote the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien by reading favourite passages. We particularly encourage schools, museums and libraries to host their own Tolkien Reading Day events. Why 25 March? The...

Gandalf Millennium Banner

Books and Reading

Roads Go Ever On: A Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Readalong

This year as I enter the world of reading challenges, I’ve also jumped into my first readalong: Brona’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Readalong 2017. It didn’t take much deliberation to decide to join. Since first reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in 1979, I’ve probably reread them a good ten times or more. I think it’s pretty safe to say that The Lord of the Rings and J.R.R. Tolkien have had a profound influence on my life. In fact, my very first blog post ever, way back in...

Bright Edge Banner

Book Review / Books and Reading

To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey

There is a mythical element to our childhood, it seems, that stays with us always. When we are young, we consume the world in great gulps, and it consumes us, and everything is mysterious and alive and fills us with desire and wonder, fear, and guilt. With the passing of the years, however, those memories become distant and malleable, and we shape them into the stories of who we are. We are brave, or we are cowardly. We are loving, or we are cruel. To the Bright Edge...

Tolkien Artist and Illustrator

Books and Reading

Nonfiction November Week 4: Be the Expert – Reading Lord of the Rings

This week’s Nonfiction November discussion prompt is hosted by Julz: Three ways to join in this week! You can either share 3 or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert). One type of nonfiction that I...

Spirituality

The Lord of the Gifts: A Brief Meditation on Tolkien and PEZ

My family held a white elephant gift exchange this past Christmas–you know, where people bring gifts anonymously, exchange them, and get a chance to steal them from others. We fought over battery operated massagers, remote control cars, coffee mugs, and Hot Wheels. I was fortunate enough to get a set of PEZ dispensers in the shape of The Lord of the Rings characters, but the process made me think about other gifts we’ve received: our talents, life experiences, and environment. I wonder how many times we look at other...

Ben-Hur

Movies

SQPN Movie Panel Launches

The good folks at SQPN, always looking for new ways to network, have launched an initiative they call the SQPN Movie Panel. Here’s how it works: Each week, SQPN will suggest a movie to watch, based on a theme for the month. The first theme is “Oscar Month,” and the movies are Titanic, Ben-Hur, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, and West Side Story. Watch the movie and join in on the conversation, either on Twitter @moviepanel or on the SQPN Facebook page. Find out more...

J.R.R. Tolkien

Books and Reading / Spirituality

Vocation in The Lord of the Rings

Though National Vocation Awareness Week has ended for this year, the working out or living out of our vocations goes on. Jeffrey Langan, Associate Professor at Notre Dame, delivers a fascinating lecture in which he uses Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to illustrate the dynamic of vocation. Though he seems to be speaking mostly about the ordained or religious life, many of his remarks could also be applied to marriage and other vocations.

Hobbiton

Books and Reading

Chronological Middle-earth Reading List

If you’ve ever wanted to read Tolkien’s Middle-earth writings in chronological order, you might want to check out my Chronological MiddleEarth Reading List. It’s available in pdf format. This reading list is a guide for those who want to read Tolkien’s works in the order in which they took place in Middle-earth, rather than in the order Tolkien originally wrote them. The reading order is NOT recommended for those who have never read any of Tolkien’s works before. The reader should have already read The Hobbit, The Lord...