tolkien appreciation month

Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: “The White Rider,” “The King of the Golden Hall,” and “Helm’s Deep”

As we continue our way through The Lord of the Rings (and I apologize for the delay in…
Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: “The Uruk-hai” and “Treebeard”

In these two chapters, we return to Merry and Pippin, who manage to escape from the…
Reading “The Lord of the Rings:” “The Departure of Boromir” and “The Riders of Rohan”

And now we come at last to the beginning of The Two Towers. In these chapters, Aragorn, Legolas,…
Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: “Farewell to Lorien,” “The Great River,” and “The Breaking of the Fellowship”

And so we come at last to the last stage of the first part of the…
Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: “Lothlorien” and “The Mirror of Galadriel”

And so we come at last to the forest of Lothlorien and to that most enigmatic…
Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: “A Journey in the Dark” and “The Bridge of Khazad-dûm”

As we rejoin the Fellowship, they have now decided to attempt to make their way through…
Book Review: Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World

I recently had the pleasure of reading Verlyn Flieger’s scholarly book Splintered Light: Logos and Language in…
Reading “The Lord of the Rings: “The Ring Goes South”

Having departed the peace and serenity of Elrond and Rivendell, we now make our way through…
Can a Queer Feminist Enjoy Tolkien?

The short answer to the question leading this post is…yes. The long, and more complete, answer,…
Reading “The Lord of the Rings:” “The Council of Elrond”

Now, at long last, we come to one of my favourite chapters in the novel. Now…