The One-hundred and eighth Roving Ranger

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Abre numa nova janela)

Life and Works

The Guardian has Beyond Bilbo: JRR Tolkien’s long-lost poetry to be published (Abre numa nova janela); see Wayne & Christina’s post on this (Abre numa nova janela).

For your information

This is the last newsletter before the start of season 2 of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Abre numa nova janela). I have published two additional newsletters you can have a look at if you take an interest:

Roving Ranger. A Special edition: The Best of June-December 2022 (Abre numa nova janela) [going through 25,000+ news items I have listed what I consider the essential pieces of information of that time span.]

Curumo’s Current Affairs (Abre numa nova janela) [a list of links I summarised as J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings have become a global phenomenon and people from all over the world appreciate them, are inspired by them - or abuse them.]

Events & Shows

The Tolkien Society has announced the Christopher Tolkien Centenary Conference (Abre numa nova janela) [online only; Nov 23-24.]

Composer Johan de Meji is often touring as a conductor, including parts of his Tolkien repertoire (such as the Lord of the Rings symphony); this time on Sept 7/8 in Germany (Abre numa nova janela) [Facebook] and other concerts around the world (Abre numa nova janela) in Kansas City, Vilnius, Amsterdam & Chicago [official website]

The English Faculty at Oxford is running the Tolkien Seminars: 70th Anniversary of The Lord of the Rings series of talks. A full list is available with Eventbrite (Abre numa nova janela) - including Holly Ordway, John Garth, Stuart Lee et al.

The J.R. Tolkien seems to have survived its sale and is up for many tours (Abre numa nova janela) (in German but you can surely ask in English as well).

For all events (Abre numa nova janela) check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Abre numa nova janela) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Abre numa nova janela).

Scholarship & Fandom

A new Tolkien documentary by German public broadcasting stations ARTE, Phoenix and ZDF will be published in December. Among the speakers are John Garth, Dimitra Fimi - and myself. (Pre-premiere at Wiesbaden (Abre numa nova janela), Sept 13). [My members with Steady know more (Abre numa nova janela).]

The people over at the Tolkien Collectors’ Guide have the info on the Beyond Bree Calendar (Abre numa nova janela) for 2025.

New Age - and Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) - Artist Peter Pracownik has passed away (Abre numa nova janela).

Gaming archivist Jason B. Dyer - via his blog Renga in Blue (Abre numa nova janela)- is hunting down the earliest ever Tolkien-inspired games (Abre numa nova janela).

Lord Of The Rings in Unreal Engine 5 (Abre numa nova janela) - FotR River Scene [Youtube; this short (Abre numa nova janela) for development process]

The Bodleian has a librarian trainees blog which recently offered Leah Brown: A Sérprent Saga: Professor Turville-Petre and his Literary Network (Abre numa nova janela) (one of Tolkien’s students).

Incredibly proud and happy to see as a longtime member of the German Inklings Society (Abre numa nova janela) that our Yearbook is now open access with Stacks (Abre numa nova janela) (upload in progress) [press note (Abre numa nova janela)].

Nick Polk has Heroic Poetry in Shōgun and The Lord of the Rings (Abre numa nova janela).

Robin Reid has More on Far-Right Extremists & Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) and a Call for Papers (Abre numa nova janela) on ‘Great Heart and Strength:’ New Essays on Women and Gender in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth (Abre numa nova janela) has been published.

Which hand did Frodo put the Ring on? (Abre numa nova janela) is asked by Tom Hillman.

Jeff LaSala has The Words of Glorfindel and the Witch-King of Angmar (Abre numa nova janela).

A fun find: THE HOBBIT, first edition, lives on! (Abre numa nova janela)

Merchandise & Franchise

Behind the scenes on Amazon's quest to make The Rings of Power season 2 a hit (Abre numa nova janela) [GQ]

Amazon’s press release material (Abre numa nova janela) for the trailer.

Games Workshop have announced a new board game (Abre numa nova janela): The Hobbit: Hunt for the Arkenstone.

Specialist drum makers HHG Drums (Abre numa nova janela) in Pennsylvania have brought the ring inscription (Abre numa nova janela) to the world of percussion. [Instagram]

The official trailer for LotR: War of the Rohirrim has been published (Abre numa nova janela).

On LotR:RoP - ‘The Rings of Power’ Showrunners Tease Season 3 Plans: “Let Us Cook!” [Hollywood Reporter (Abre numa nova janela)]

Everything You Need to Remember Before Season 2 of The Rings of Power (Abre numa nova janela)[Time]

Online train ticket company Trainline is offering Tolkien’s England: explore the real-world inspirations behind Middle-earth (Abre numa nova janela).

PSA Another blog post that is full of assumptions and half-truths you need to be an expert to tell reality from nonsense. Having said this - lovely list of places to visit with some of them actually Tolkienian. Your go to book: Garth, Worlds of Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela).

Inter alia & Back in the Day

2024 World Fantasy Awards Finalists announced (Abre numa nova janela) [Locus]

Paul Kidby interview - Terry Pratchett’s Discworld illustrator talks about his work and inspirations (Abre numa nova janela) [Blackmore Vale]

‘The Acolyte’ Canceled: No Season 2 For Disney+’s ‘Star Wars’ Series (Abre numa nova janela) [Deadline]

Next time you are in Seattle - why not go for the Hobbit Trail (Abre numa nova janela)?

You can now enter your work with the New Zealand Youth Film Festival (Abre numa nova janela), supported - amongst others - by Weta Workshop and Weta FX.

Talpa Search (Abre numa nova janela) promises to find you the books you do not know the title or author of (run by LibraryThing (Abre numa nova janela)).

The 2024 Hugo Award Winners (Abre numa nova janela) have been announced (additional literary awards via LibraryThing (Abre numa nova janela).

John Scalzi has a few choice words to say some people neet to read: Please Don’t Idolize Me (or Anyone, Really) (Abre numa nova janela).

xkcd always makes me smile.

According to German law I have to infom you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's (Abre numa nova janela) or Bookshop.org (Abre numa nova janela), the bookshops of my personal trust.

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Abre numa nova janela) : Facebook (Abre numa nova janela) : Bluesky (Abre numa nova janela) : Instagram (Abre numa nova janela) : : Threads : Mastodon (Abre numa nova janela) : Xitter (Abre numa nova janela)
You can support me by becoming a member with my Steady page (Abre numa nova janela).

If you happen to use Feedly (Abre numa nova janela) - why not subscribe to one of their most popular Tolkien blogs: thetolkienist.com ☺️

As this is 2024 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.