Be sure to catch ‘Saturday Night Live’ tonight with special guest Ian McKellen (Gandalf)! SNL airs on NBC at 11:30 PM EST

Greenbooks staffer Anwyn spotted this newly-published article on CNN.com, discussing the rise and rise in popularity of Tolkien’s Trilogy over nearly half a century. [More]

Epic Shadow writes: “allrecipes.com has some Lord of the Rings cuisine for an awesome Hobbit Oscar Party.” Check out the Ranger Squares…You might want to check our Greenbooks section for LOTR recipes too, if you want to get into this! [More]

For years, the topic of Balrog wings has been hotly debated by Tolkien experts and geeks alike. Due to the ambiguity of his writing, the debate over whether a Balrog has physical, touch-with-your-hand wings or not depends, as with quite a lot of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, on the mental image of every single individual. [More]

Ice Hobbit writes: Check out the Weekend Section of today’s Wall Street Journal. There is a short story about the sale on E-Bay of souvenir Rings distributed by New Line Cinema to industry insiders, Academy Award voters, press, etc. An observer is quoted as saying that the sale of such gifts “shows a lack of breeding”.

(I know I’ll never sell my gift ring from New Line….oh wait I never got one!! -Xo)

Many folks have written in telling us we should use our Sauron-like influence on the latest poll over at MSN.com, so…go forth and swamp!! [More]