The One hundred and sixty-third Roving Ranger

-:- Strange as news from Bree -:-

Life and Works

Tolkien’s Desk (Abre numa nova janela) from his years at Merton College is up for auction. [Tolkien Guide; my expectation would 250k+ quid upwards]

An Unfinished Tales Special Edition is coming (Abre numa nova janela) [Tolkien Guide]

The Bovadium Fragments were mentioned in one of my favourite publications, the Oxford Clarion (Abre numa nova janela) [Nov 7]

Cllr Emma Garnett (Green, Parks) actually read out an excerpt in this week’s County Council meeting.

(Abre numa nova janela)

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My podcast: A Talk with the Tolkienist [Spotify (Abre numa nova janela) | YT (Abre numa nova janela) | RSS feed (Abre numa nova janela)]

Events & Shows

The Leadership in Tolkien’s Middle-earth hybrid conference will take place at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, on March 14, 2026 (Abre numa nova janela).

Edmund Weiner of The Ring of Words (Abre numa nova janela) will be talking about Lewis, the Lexicographer at Pusey House, Oxford. (Abre numa nova janela)

EYE OF MELIAN, Featuring DELAIN And AURI Members, Announces 'Forest Of Forgetting' Album (Abre numa nova janela) - and Finnish tour.

A short trailer for the Lithopolis rendition of The Hobbit (Abre numa nova janela) [Youtube]

For all events check out the Tolkien Guide (Abre numa nova janela).

Scholarship & Fandom

The lovely people over at the Tolkien Guide have just published their new Guide to Tolkien Calendars (Abre numa nova janela).

Dimitra Fimi has Tolkien Tuesday: Two unexpected places in which Tolkien recalls the Great War (Abre numa nova janela). [Substack]

doubtfulsea has To Bree (Part 2) (Abre numa nova janela).

Lord of the wrongs! Tolkien hotel makes bedroom blunder (Abre numa nova janela) [Telegraph]

Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth (Abre numa nova janela) has a publication date - Nov 28. [Substack]

The Kent State University Press has a 60th Anniversary offer (Abre numa nova janela)- 40% off and free shipping. Check out their Tolkien, Lewis, and Inklings Studies (Abre numa nova janela) - home to such excellent books as Verlyn Flieger’s Splintered Light (Abre numa nova janela), Tom Hillman’s Pity, Power, and Tolkien’s Ring (Abre numa nova janela), or Diana Glyer’s The Company They Keep (Abre numa nova janela).¹

Miriam Ellis has Tolkien's Goldilocks Easter Egg: "Very Ancient Indeed (Abre numa nova janela)."

Stephen C. Winter has “What is Wrong With Strider?” Gandalf Gives Pippin a Rapid Briefing on Aragorn Just Before They Enter the Throne Room of Gondor (Abre numa nova janela).

Merchandise & Franchise

Please note Whenever the BBC writes an article with a title similar to “Has region/ place X inspired Tolkien to Y?” please take this with a grain of salt. The Beeb has made many unproven or misleading claims when it comes to ‘Tolkien’s sources’ in the last 20+ years which plague us to this very day…

Free League Publishing have announced Hands of the White Wizard and Trials of Saruman as well as Hobbit Tales (Abre numa nova janela) for their LotR RPG.

The Smithsonian Associates’ series on the History of Fantasy has its last event Fantasy After Dungeons & Dragon (Abre numa nova janela)s on Nov 19. Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) was #3 of five presentations.

Move Over Frodo Baggins, Luxury-Home Buyers Are Coming for Prime ‘Lord of the Rings’ Landscape (Abre numa nova janela) [Mansion Global]

Inter alia

This will make quite a few people happy: Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) met Pope Leo in Rome (Abre numa nova janela) and gave him a gift. [YouTube]

LibraryThing is offering its Secret Santa (Abre numa nova janela) for the 19th time, supporting independent bookstores the world over [not the Big A!], so that members on LT can send/ and or get surprise books for Christmas!

Vatican newspaper editor critiques Palantir Technologies’ meritocracy fellowship (Abre numa nova janela) [Catholic Culture]

Does this mean… Lucas likes Tolkien? (Abre numa nova janela)

The recently started congestion charge in Oxford cannot be circumvented simply by buying the Ghosterbuster’s hearse (Abre numa nova janela) [Oxford Clarion]

“I knew well that I risked death…” #RLSDay (Abre numa nova janela). [Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings]

If you want to know what the Ellison family - with an Oxfordian link now - is all about, read this: DEI is dead at Paramount, David Ellison’s Skydance promises FCC (Abre numa nova janela) [LA Times]

New ‘Star Trek’ Movie In Works At Paramount From Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley (Abre numa nova janela) [Deadline; see also The Verge (Abre numa nova janela)]

The trace of Russian business and poor-quality shelters: "GDN of Ukraine" overpaid half a million hryvnias for structures with thinner walls than required by SBS (Abre numa nova janela) [Antikor; deals with the owners of the UA ‘hobbit houses’)

Romantastic: Romantic Fantasy leads SFF to its best-ever year (Abre numa nova janela) [Bookseller, UK]

In case you had not noticed, I like xkcd.
And I dislike SUV’s with a burning passion…

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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 (Abre numa nova janela) : Mastodon (Abre numa nova janela).

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

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 minimum time of curating this newsletter ranges from 8-12 hours every week. Please consider supporting me so I can continue offering the Roving Ranger - thank you.

1. h/t to Tom Hillman (Abre numa nova janela). ↩