The One hundred and thirty-first Roving Ranger

Events & Shows

Hobbit auditions coming up in January 2026 with TAC at the Lake (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Liberty Lake, WA]

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Scholarship & Fandom

Jason Fisher is on a roll with: Humphrey Carpenter was a professional jazz musician (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [see also: Tolkien’s Biographer Was Also a Pro Jazz Bassist (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)], Like father like son (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), and A newly discovered primary account of Arthur Tolkien’s death (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Tolkien scholar and organiser of the many excellent talks and seminars in Oxford (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in recent years, Giuseppe Pezzini, will have a book out, April 30: Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation [Bookshop.org (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | Blackwell’s (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

doubtfulsea has Rad Aghast (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Mercury Natis has Reading Sam and Frodo through the Greek Loves (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Substack]

Stephen C. Winter has “Frodo, I Think You Do Very Unwisely in This… I Do Not Think You Should Go With This Creature. It is Wicked.” Frodo and the Wisdom of Unwisdom (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Dimitra Fimi has On Tolkien's Letter 131 (1): Capturing "timeless Elvish enchantment." (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Substack]

Robin Reid has Tolkien Studies Area, PCA, Program (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Merchandise & Franchise

Amazon shakes up streaming leadership team (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [TechCrunch; see also Hollywood Reporter (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

Apparently, Middle-earth Enterprises are litigious as ever and are trying to go against a ruling in Australia where “Lord of the Fries” was allowed to keep and use its trademark (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), clearly arguing “Lord of the X” is not a snowclone (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) owned by MEE. [New South Wales case registry (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

Take a closer look at LEGO 10354 The Lord of the Rings: The Shire’s minifigures (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [BrickFanatics]

Warner Holme Review: The One Ring: Moria: Through the Doors of Durin (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [File770]

Sotheby’s has Lord of the Rings to The Hobbit: The Most Valuable Tolkien Works of All Time (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The La Bohème in Washington has a Tolkien Dinner (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Lord Of The Rings Turned Into Studio Ghibli AI Slop Looks Like Garbage (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Kotaku]

Inter alia

In the last week two actors who were of influence to me (via SHOGUN and WILLOW] passed away: Val Kilmer [BBC (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | BFI (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | NPR (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) ] and Richard Chamberlain [ BBC (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | BFI (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | CBC (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

The people at Tolkien Guide have Selling your Book Collection (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Youtube]

Ansible 453 made mention of the upcoming 451 Fahrenheit by J.R.R. Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [April 1st]

George R.R. Martin has a lovely write-up on Glasgow (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Warner Bros. Cancels New ‘Harry Potter’ Project After Deciding It’s Not Worth the Money (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Inside the Magic]

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 3, has an Official Teaser. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Thinking about starting a newsletter, podcast, Patreon, Substack etc.?

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Do use my invite link (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and start with three months fee-free.
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According to German law I have to inform you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Bookshop.org (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), or Genialokal (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), the (independent) bookshops of my personal trust (one with a Tolkien connection!)

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Facebook (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Bluesky (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Instagram (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Threads (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Mastodon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

As this is 2025 I would like to note that this newsletter is 100% human-made, curated by me, Marcel R. Bülles. This also holds true for everything I write with my blog and here at Steady. Also, the average time of curating this newsletter ranges from 12-16 hours for the bi-weekly edition and 6-8 hours for the weekly one.