I'm sure many of the Tolkien Purists will say otherwise, but as someone with no knowledge of the books' backstory, I am very much enjoying The Rings Of Power Season 2.

If there were a few niggling issues with the show creeping in towards the end of Season 1, with some of the storylines writing feeling a bit off, I feel like they have managed to apply a couple of subtle course corrections which are definitely keeping me engaged.

Sure, the Gandalf/Harfoots plotline remains the weakest of the bunch, but in terms of the broader politicking and scheming with the forging of the rings and such, it's all very much clicking into gear.

Also, simply when compared to its own contemporaries in the fantasy TV genre (The Wheel of Time, House of the Dragon, and post season two Witcher), it's an absolute cut-above in terms of production value.

Would highly recommend to anyone who is familiar with the Peter Jackson movies and enjoys the wider middle earth universe (but has never read the appendices or other supporting material from Tolkien probably)

My local Tolkien book club is doing virtual watch parties for Rings of Power, and most of us are not having a good time. So I definitely agree that if you've read anything about the Second Age you will probably not like the show. That being said, we do have a few people who love the Silmarillion and are also enjoying RoP despite the inconsistencies with the book lore. I guess it comes down to personal taste.

I see the potential, and there are some interesting stories they've come up with, but overall I keep getting frustrated with it. "Why did they do that?" is a common refrain in our book club chat.

Posted by: @icarus

Also, simply when compared to its own contemporaries in the fantasy TV genre (The Wheel of Time, House of the Dragon, and post season two Witcher), it's an absolute cut-above in terms of production value.

I'm actually disappointed in the production value. House of the Dragon has better costumes and several CGI dragons. Wheel of Time production is less, but it also has a significantly smaller budget. RoP should be much, much better. I am really enjoying Bear McCreary's soundtrack though. Too much of season 1 sounded like it was ripped from his Outlander soundtrack, but season 2 sounds more like it's own show.

Case in point: this lovely rendition of Old Tom Bombadil. It's the credits version, so not what he actually sounds like in the show.

I have just finished my annual reading of Lord of the Rings. (Sigh!)

This year I have read from the set of hardbacks I bought last New Year in London; I'd promised myself a good hardback set for years, and these will last me out.

Today is 21st September, the day that The Hobbit was published in 1937.

Tomorrow 22nd is 'Hobbit Day', being the birthday of both Tolkien's main characters, Bilbo and Frodo.

Happy Hobbit Day, everyone!  

@coracle I wish I had the time and the energy to do a re-read of The Lord of the Rings every single year... I can't remember when I last read the entire trilogy cover to cover and it's definitely overdue. I just have too many other things I'm either in the process of reading, or wanting to read, with usually more than one book on the go at once! 

@courtenay if it's any help, I was in my 40s before I read it every year. (Influenced by hearing Christopher Lee say how he had read it every year since it was published).

@coracle I'm already in my 40s, so I'm not sure that helps much...

(Incidentally, another reasonably well-known person I'm aware of who read it every year was Donald Swann, of Flanders and Swann fame, who composed music for a number of Tolkien's songs found in LOTR and his other writings. He mentions the annual reading in his preface to the book of his song cycle, The Road Goes Ever On. Well worth having a copy of if you're a Tolkien fan.)

@courtenay try every second year. That's what Johobbit does, I believe.

This weekend I have read the last chapter of LOTR, and listened to the last episodes of LOTR BBC Radio drama. Just the movie trilogy to watch now.

Question: (really thought about it as I finished the book)  What happened to the ponies and horses that Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf and all the Elves travelled on to the Grey Havens? Did Cirdan keep a stable there? I'm dubious that the animals went on the ship.

This is true: I have been reading The Lord of the Rings biennially since I was in my mid-teens. There were a few breaks when we were raising young kiddos, but other than that, the pattern has continued to this day, and, I hope, for many years to come.

Like you, @Courtenay, I always have a few books on the go, and loads more on my To-Read list (mostly non-fiction, very often biographies), so reading The LotR every two years works best for me. However, every other year (at least), beginning within the past decade, I listen to the unabridged audio (Andy Serkis) or a dramatized version. So, in a sense, I guess I am 'reading' it, in various formats, every year.

I sometimes wonder, when I am about to plunge into the beloved book again, whether it will ever get old. It never does! In fact, as with the Narnia Chronicles, these marvelous tales become more rich and meaningful with every read.  

@ Daughter of the King: My local Tolkien book club is doing virtual watch parties forRings of Power, and most of us are not having a good time. So, I definitely agree that if you've read anything about the Second Age you will probably not like the show. That being said, we do have a few people who love theSilmarillionand are also enjoying RoP despite the inconsistencies with the book lore. I guess it comes down to personal taste.

Are you talking about the TV series, produced on Prime, one of these streaming services, like Netflix, but in this case, sponsored by Amazon, which already charges me a previously unused subscription?  I was thrilled to find that "The Lord of the Rings: the Rings of Power" had completed 2 Seasons so have already viewed all eight episodes of Season 1 plus the first 2 episodes of Season 2. 

I haven't read any of the books for a while, but I already knew about the Rings of Power from the Appendices in the 3rd volume of The Lord of the Rings. 1 am enjoying the series so far but get a bit lost when the storyline appears to jump around somewhat, featuring memories & flashbacks, which interrupts the main story. The character that confuses me most is Sauron, at the moment, when so far, he has had at least 2 other name changes. I also miss characters like Anárion, Isildur's brother, who seems to have been replaced by a sister. 

Is anyone else watching this show? And when Season 2 only was completed at the beginning of October, when would Season 3 be started?

Local NarniaWebbers got together this past weekend, as we sometimes do, and this time we watched The Fellowship of the Ring.

A lot has been said here (and that evening) about the changes Peter Jackson makes to the source material, but several of us commented on the incredible detail and all the work that went into making the props for the movie, some of which were only seen briefly or in the background. Despite its shortcomings, I had a good time watching it again, as it has been a while since I'd seen it.

A friend posted this on FB.  He found it on The One Ring Net.

Written by Tolkien in 1936, but discovered in 2013.

Noel
by J.R.R. Tolkien
Grim was the world and grey last night:
The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light,
The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
And over the mountains’ teeth
It whistled bitter-cold and free,
As a sword leapt from its sheath.

The lord of snows upreared his head;
His mantle long and pale
Upon the bitter blast was spread
And hung o’er hill and dale.
The world was blind,
the boughs were bent,
All ways and paths were wild:
Then the veil of cloud apart was rent,
And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer
Was pricked with distant light;
A star came shining white and clear
Alone above the night.
In the dale of dark in that hour of birth
One voice on a sudden sang:
Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth
Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below:
They heard her song arise
O’er mist and over mountain snow
To the walls of Paradise,
And the tongue of many bells was stirred
in Heaven’s towers to ring
When the voice of mortal maid was heard,
That was mother of Heaven’s King.

Glad is the world and fair this night
With stars about its head,
And the hall is filled with laughter and light,
And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring
With bells of Christendom,
And Gloria, Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come.

Last night, we went to the movies to see The Lord of the Rings: the War of the Rohirrim. We quite enjoyed the movie, about Helm Hammerhand, and Wulf, a Dunlending chieftain, who had an eye to take over Rohan. At first, I wasn't too sure which tale was being told, but as the story developed, it became more familiar, when it fleshes out a tale from the Lord of the Rings appendices.

On January 7th Lord of the Rings: the musical is opening at the State Theatre, in Market Street, Sydney. Later, it will go to Perth, in Western Australia, then down to Melbourne, and to the Gold Coast, near Brisbane.  I hear that it was at Auckland in New Zealand, earlier, this year. 

Just finished The Fall of Numenor, by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien. This book was published in 2022 to coincide, I think, with the first season of The Rings of Power on Amazon. So, it's what Tolkien really wrote about the Second Age, rather than what was in the TV depiction.

Book first. I'd never read anything of the LOTR history material -- like The Silmarilian, Unfinished Tales, etc. -- and was surprised at how entertaining and readable it was. Like The Silmarillian, The Fall of Numenor is a compilation of material from Tolkien's background writings, arranged to show the origin and the end of that LOTR equivalent of Atlantis, and certain doings in Middle Earth as well. For me, it enriched and added to the trilogy itself. Tolkien's style made it interesting, part Biblical, part Norse and Germanic myth. The best part, IMO, were the detailed chapters about the marital problems of Aldarion, the son of King Menelder, whose wife takes issue with him always going off adventuring on the sea. Psychologically, very insightful, yet told simply. Of this Tolkien was a master.

I had such a positive experience with this I'm ready to tackle The Silmarilion next.

Of course, the series was a LOT different, but I loved it anyway, because it took the dry history of Tolkien and added color, life, and personality to it.  

Happy New Year, fellow fans of Tolkien (and Lewis)!  

Couple of exciting purchases with my Christmas money from my family, which I think will interest others here. I'm sure someone, somewhere on NarniaWeb a while ago, mentioned the new three-volume set of The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, as I know I found out about it here somewhere, but I can't now find the discussion. Maybe someone else can.

Anyway, I now have it, and... words pretty much fail me. It's beyond fantastic. Definitely a must for anyone who loves Tolkien's writings. Unlike what the editors suggest is common, I am not one of those readers who "pass over [Tolkien's poems in his stories] very quickly or avoid them altogether, either in haste to get on with the prose narrative or because they dislike poetry in general, or think they do." And now we have a whole collection of nearly every poem he ever wrote — excluding some in languages other than modern English (though his most significant ones in other languages are included with translations), and some of the poems in The Hobbit and TLOTR (but pretty much all the best ones are in there!). AND these books take us through all known stages of their composition as well, featuring all surviving drafts or earlier forms of each of those poems that Tolkien worked on over a period of time or published more than once (which is many of them). You could literally spend hours, days, weeks, months (years??) dipping into these volumes or reading them through carefully, there's just so much in there. 

Here's a review I just found — which, despite being entitled "A First Look at The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien", is actually a lengthy exploration of what's in this set and why it's so good — so that will give you more of an idea. I may well post highlights here as I delve into them myself, but as I just said, I could be busy with these volumes for a very long time and still not come to the end of them!  

My other purchase was a book that was referenced in an online article I was reading recently about Tolkien and his works, and now I can't actually remember what and where the article was, but I immediately took note of this book, looked it up, and decided to buy it along with the Collected Poems. It's The History of The Hobbit, by John D. Rateliff. This one turned out to be a much thicker and denser book that I realised (it was originally published as two volumes, but the newer edition is in one), and it also has a LOT in it. It traces the writing of The Hobbit through all its stages of growth as a story, starting with Tolkien's earliest drafts and looking at the many changes it went through — some small, some major — up to its first publication and through the revisions that followed.

It is quite a heavy and technical book, but absolutely fascinating for anyone who loves The Hobbit and appreciates delving into its history and evolution as a story in its own right, which — as Rateliff indicates — has unfortunately been neglected with the tendency of modern readers and critics to view The Hobbit as "only" a prequel to TLOTR, and a lesser and rather juvenile one at that, instead of as a masterpiece in its own right.

Here's another decent review to give others here an idea of the contents: Tolkien 101: The History of the Hobbit by John Rateliff

As the above review points out, and as I noticed from reading it, The History of The Hobbit is intended to be a sort of companion to The Annotated Hobbit, an edition of Tolkien's story with annotations and commentary by Douglas A. Anderson — and happily, I already have that book, so I've taken this as an excuse to get stuck into it as well. But first up, I'm just reading the story through without paying much attention to the annotations, since, while I've dipped into The Hobbit many times over the years, I haven't read the entire book through consecutively for decades. And along with it taking me right back to being an utterly over-the-moon 7-year-old girl reading it for the first time, I've just made a rediscovery of a detail I'd completely forgotten, from early in chapter 2 ("Roast Mutton"):

Bilbo began to whistle loudly and to forget about the night before. In fact he was just sitting down to a nice little second breakfast in the dining-room by the open window, when in walked Gandalf....

To the end of his days Bilbo could never remember how he found himself outside, without a hat, a walking-stick or any money, or anything that he usually took when he went out; leaving his second breakfast half-finished and quite unwashed-up...

(pages 60 and 64 in The Annotated Hobbit)

... So it actually IS canonical that Hobbits have second breakfast!!!  

(It's my absolute favourite not-in-the-books line from the Peter Jackson LOTR film trilogy, and I've always felt a bit guilty quoting it and joking about it, because I was convinced Tolkien himself never actually used the term "second breakfast"... until now. )