The Lord of the Rings Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore had no trouble conjuring up music for great halls, evil times, or any of the scenes depicted in Peter Jackson’s epic adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s three novels about the great war for the “one ring to rule them all.” More..

From Geek Dad Matt Blum on Wired.com: Some questions have such clear answers that you know your answer the moment you hear or read it. These are of the “Who was the better James Bond: Connery or Dalton?” sort. You might even blink a few times to make sure you read the question correctly. This is not what the Great Geek Debates are all about. They are about the deep, soul-searching, tough questions — not quite Sophie’s Choice-tough, but nearly so. They challenge you to determine, once and for all, what kind of geek you truly are. More..

From Amazon.com Blogs: The Author of the Century, of course, needs no help from anyone (least of all a speck like me). No force on earth could undermine either the juggernaut implacability of his sales, nor the world-historic scale of his influence, nor the truly enormous weight of his achievement. The man puts the ‘epic’ in ‘epic win’. However–or, more accurately, because of that–every few years, certain as tides, someone will write a splenetic screed against the Professor, explaining why he’s the devil/ worst things to happen to fantasy/voice of reaction/zomg most boring writer EVER /etc. The Oedipal Resentment motivating many of these attacks may be trivially obvious, especially in those from within fantastic fiction, but it doesn’t follow that the substance of all the criticism is baseless. There are perfectly reasonable arguments to be had about the impact, nature, scale and success of Tolkien’s work. China Mieville Talks Tolkien

NEW YORK – The latest J.R.R. Tolkien project lasted six years, more than half as long as the author needed to complete his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Getting permission to release a book in electronic form can be as hard – or harder – than writing it. “The Tolkien estate wanted to be absolutely confident that e-books were not something ephemeral,” says David Roth-Ey, director of business development at HarperCollins UK, which announced last week that the late British author’s work – among the world’s most popular – would be available for downloads. “We were finally able to convince the Tolkien estate that the e-book is a legitimate, widespread format.” Tolkien’s in, but e-library still lacking

From thebookseller.com: J R R Tolkien will move into the digital age as HarperCollins begins selling his Lord of the Rings series as enhanced e-books.

As The Bookseller went to press, the publisher said it was planning to issue Tolkien’s entire back catalogue as e-books, beginning with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit and The Children of Húrin from today [20th April]. The e-books will include the maps and runes contained in the traditional print books and will be on sale at waterstones.com, harpercollinsebooks.co.uk and tolkien.co.uk. Waterstone’s will have a dedicated author page featuring the e-books from today.

David Roth-Ey, director of digital business development, said that the launch was the “most significant e-book initiative” the publisher has done so far. He said: “This is something that the fans so clearly wanted. Releasing Tolkien in e-books is something that has long been a goal of ours and we wanted to create high-quality legal versions of these books. It was a long -process—with the maps and runes, it’s slightly more complicated than [digitising] your average thriller.” HC turns Middle Earth digital

David Platt writes: Thought you might be interested in the fact that that New York Times Online is running the original 1954-56 reviews of the Lord of the Rings. I am not sure of any particular reason which has led to this- but do they need one? Two of the reviews are by the great British poet WH Auden. The other is by an academic from Columbia University. It is fascinating to see how literary opinion received the books at the time- both are fans!

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Lance Owens writes: In Salt Lake City, Utah we have a major series of Tolkien lectures coming up in Feb and March 2009. We would appreciate it if you could add notice on your page.

Wasatch Gnostic Society – 2009 Winter Lecture Series
J.R.R. Tolkien: An Imaginative Life

“The Land of Fairy Story is wide and deep and high…. In that land a man may (perhaps) count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very mystery and wealth make dumb the traveler who would report….The fairy gold (too often) turns to withered leaves when it is brought away. All that I can ask is that you, knowing all these things, will receive my withered leaves, as a token at least that my hand once held a little of the gold.”– Tolkien, draft manuscript of “On Fairy Stories” Read the rest of this entry »

Lotho Sackville-Baggins writes: Some folks will be celebrating JRR Tolkien’s 117th birthday a little late… Portland Oregon’s fabulous McMenamin’s Kennedy school has the following event planned for January 17th. Check out their webpage if you are going to be in the area. Read the rest of this entry »

Reepicheep_Took sent us this great find: “Found a report about some Superhero and movie-related auction items. Most notably, there are first edition, Tolkien autographed copies of all LOTR books, and a signed map of middle-Earth drawn by Tolkien.”

Profiles in History, a leading dealer in guaranteed-authentic original historical autographs, letters, documents, vintage signed photographs and manuscripts, will hold the 33rd annual Hollywood Memorabilia auction on December 11. If you have a few thousand (or hundred thousand) dollars burning a hole in your pocket, you could own the set pictured to the right which is estimated to go for $80,000 to $100,000 U.S. For all the Tolkien-related items currently available, follow the Profiles in History link and search on “Tolkien.” For a quick list of all the items in the auction (including King Kong, Star Wars and Harry Potter memorabilia), go to Superhero Hype.com

Claudia Riiff Finseth contacted us a while ago offering her articles on Tolkien, here is her third and last article ‘Tolkien’s Trees’.

Riiff Finseth is a freelance writer and author. Among her favorite works of literature is Lord of the Rings, which she has read over twenty times, more than any other book. Name the chapter, and Claudia can tell you what happens in it. Claudia was born in 1954 in Longview, Washington, USA. She studied literature and nursing at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, where she lives today with her husband and their family. She can be reached at dragonflypond@gmail.com. Read the rest of this entry »