The One hundred and fifty-fifth Roving Ranger

-:- Strange as news from Bree -:-

Happy Birthday to Bilbo (22 September, TA 2890) and Frodo (22 September, T.A. 2968.)

Also The Hobbit was published Sept 21, 1937 - eighty-eight years ago. Aragorn was crowned king at the age of eighty-eight.

Events & Shows

September Cinballera Salon - Lady of the Ring and Songs of Middle Earth (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Sept 22; Villa Montezuma, San Diego, USA | IG (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

ALEP 6 is happening this week (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Medieval and Early Modern Research Network has Will Sherwood for their September meeting (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)on Tolkien’s Romantic Medievalism. [Sept 29]

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

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Scholarship & Fandom

Miriam Ellis has Fangorn's Lore: The Old Lists of the Ents (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Stephen C. Winter has “Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow.” Sam’s Grief For Frodo in Shelob’s Lair (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Middle Earth in Madison? UW exhibit honors the legacy of fantasy map maker Karen Fonstad (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Daily Cardinal; note the lovely signatures in one ‘Atlas’ of Flieger, Lee and Astin.]

I have written a review on the recently published romantic comedy My Oxford Year (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [thetolkienist.com; Tolkien mentions]

Musical chapters from the Lord of the Rings, composed by Paul Corfield Godfrey, are out now (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

doubtfulsea has Going Around in Cycles (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Joel Merriner’s book Illustrating The Lord of the Rings in the Soviet Bloc is available at a 30% discount¹ (at the time of writing) with Bloomsbury. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) Published last week, Joel has made some images of it available (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Bluesky]

Stratofanatic has Tolkien's Honorary Membership in the Icelandic Literary Society (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

[The] Silmarillion; book-collecting minutiae has 1979 First Paperback: Six Price Variants (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Muster at Marquette, the short documentary on the Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection, is available now (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Youtube]

Merchandise & Franchise

Rare Tolkien book signed in Elvish to auction for £15,000 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Oxford Mail; see more at TolkienGuide (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

Lord of the Rings producer collapses under shock $4m debt (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Herald Sun, Australia; paywall]

One of the companies that produced footwear for the Jackson films is on sale (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Otago Daily Times]

NZ’s global brand stuck in rut of dairy, lamb and Lord of the Rings (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Newsroom]

Nine 'Squaroes' for Mortal Men - 'Squaroes' proudly presents the new 'The Lord of the Rings' inspired collection (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [ICv2]

Inter alia

Boromir's Bloggish Bebotherments has returned with part 7: Scouring the net for all things Tolkienian in the age of AI slop… (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [On sources for this newsletter; Steady]

If you have never heard of the Iron Butt Association (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), never mind - just know there is a Middle-earth quest driving through Canada (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [CBC, Canada]

A fifth of all of humanity speaks, writes, thinks and prays in the language born on these isles and perfected in the pages of Shakespeare and Dickens, Tolkien and Lewis, Orwell and Kipling—incredible people, unbelievable people like we have rarely seen before and probably won't see again.²

On Silencing Jimmy Kimmel And Stephen Colbert (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [File770]

Discovering Homo floresiensis: 'I hated the name hobbit' (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [BBC News]

The Rise of Parasitic AI (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [LessWrong]

xkcd wins again.

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

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1. h/t TolkienGuide (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Bluesky] ↩

2. Trump at State Banquet, UK (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Newsweek] ↩