The One hundred and seventy-seventh Roving Ranger

-:- Strange as news from Bree -:-

Events & Shows

The exhibition “Da Tolkien a Narnia: Illustrations of Pauline Baynes” will be running until March 7th at the Scuderie Medicee (Opens in a new window) in Poggio a Caiano, Italy [next biggest city is Bologna]

The Hobbit is showing with Enter Stage Right (Opens in a new window). [March]

For all events check out the Tolkien Guide (Opens in a new window).

I am doing a global map for Tolkien Reading Day (Opens in a new window), with events from Tolkien societies & smials, libraries and cultural partners, who have Middle-earth in their hearts. Send me your links!

My podcast: A Talk with the Tolkienist [Spotify (Opens in a new window) | YT (Opens in a new window) | RSS feed (Opens in a new window)]

Scholarship & Fandom

Don’t forget:

Matej Cadil has The Little Blade from Gondolin: Drawing Sting (Opens in a new window). [Substack]

The Journal of Tolkien Research has added two new reviews: Numenor, The Mighty and Frail: Proceedings of The Tolkien Society Seminar 2023 (2025), ed. by Will Sherwood (Opens in a new window) and Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth (2025), edited by Robin Anne Reid, Christopher Vaccaro, and Stephen Yandell. (Opens in a new window)

Dimitra Fimi has Little People and Miniature Worlds: Contexts and Chronologies (with Tolkien as a guide!) (Opens in a new window) [Substack]

doubtfulsea has Eavesdropping (Opens in a new window).

Graham Scheper has published a rendition of Tolkien’s Ides Aelfscyne (Opens in a new window) [Youtube]

Abigail Nussbaum has The Great Tolkien Reread: In the House of Tom Bombadil (Opens in a new window) [Blogspot]

A must read for those of us who volunteer: How to Recover from Volunteer Burnout (Opens in a new window) [SFWA]

Tom Hillman has A Ghostly Link between Tolkien and Charles Williams? (Opens in a new window) [Blogspot]

Miriam Ellis has The Fox and the Hobbits: Grimmian Wonder. (Opens in a new window)

John Garth has My 2025 with Tolkien – from Faërie to Minnesota (Opens in a new window). [Wordpress]

Andrew Higgins has Exploring Invented Languages (Opens in a new window) [Substack]

The Silmarillion — Clowes First State (Paper Binding Variant) (1977) (Opens in a new window) [Blogspot]

Stephen C. Winter has “You Forget to Whom You Speak.” Aragorn Declares Himself to Sauron in The Stone of Orthanc (Opens in a new window).

Merchandise & Franchise

A new boardgame from Office Dog Games: LotR: Circle of Conflict (Opens in a new window).

Nacon Files for Insolvency Days Before Its Big Showcase and Just Over 2 Weeks Before GreedFall 2 Releases Its Full 1.0 Version (Opens in a new window) [IGN; Nacon was the publisher to LotR: Gollum]

Film Ireland has The Scariest Moments in The Lord of the Rings, 25 Years On (Opens in a new window).

Corsair is halting Drop sales after March 25th (Opens in a new window) [Verge]

A very good write-up on the Warner Bros./ Discovery sale: Too Much TV: Behind The Scenes Of Netflix's Decision To Drop Bid For WBD (Opens in a new window) [Substack]

Inter alia

William Butler Yeats Makes a Buck (Three superbiae and a clusterfuck) (Opens in a new window)[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Substack]

The Lamb & Flag doing what it should be doing: Famous Oxford pub now has its own group of writers (Opens in a new window) [Oxford Mail]

Jeff LaSala has Just Change the Title! Problem Solved (Opens in a new window).

Ansible 464 (Opens in a new window) has been published.

‘Harry Potter’ Reboot Prompts Major Licensing Deal With Hasbro (Opens in a new window) [LA Magazine]

Can New Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro Weather AI, Revitalize ‘Star Wars’ and Marvel and Save the Magic Kingdom? (Opens in a new window) [Variety]

What Is Palantir? An FAQ (Opens in a new window) [The Ringer]

Bret Devereaux is starting another series I’ll make sure to read: Collections: Warfare in Dune, Part I: Fighting Faufreluches (Opens in a new window).

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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 (Opens in a new window), Bookshop.org (Opens in a new window), or Genialokal (Opens in a new window), 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 (Opens in a new window) : Facebook (Opens in a new window) : Bluesky (Opens in a new window) : Instagram (Opens in a new window) : Threads (Opens in a new window) : Mastodon (Opens in a new window) - and have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Opens in a new window)

As this is 2026 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.