hi all, Xoanon here. How excited was I today when I ripped open a package and out popped Kristin Thompson’s ‘The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood’. It seems like years ago we spoke about this book, and now it is finally out there for the fans to read! Learn about the early days of ‘TheOneRing.net’ (and the LOTR internet zeitgeist), and all other manner of geeky goodness! [More]
Category: Books Publications
The University of California Press is pleased to announce the publication of: ‘The Frodo Franchise: “The Lord of the Rings” and Modern Hollywood’ Kristin Thompson is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her many books include “Film Art: An Introduction” and “Film History: An Introduction” (both with David Bordwell) and “Storytelling in the New Hollywood”. [More]
TORN Staffer Ostadan writes: The Esperanto translation of The Lord of the Rings (translated by William Auld) has been out of print for several years. I was recently pleased to learn that it will be reprinted this year, with some material not translated for the first edition (but, alas, still lacking the Appendices). You can get a taste of the translation at here; the site includes the Riddles in the Dark chapter from The Hobbit (Enigmoj en la Mallumo) which was reprinted in 2005, and two chapters (so far) from Lord of the Rings (La Ombro de la pasinteco, and La Spegulo de Galadriela), with four more to come over the next few weeks; one translated chapter from each of the six books of LotR will appear on the site. Since people have the original English at their fingertips (if not actually memorized), these translated excerpts may prove interesting as a curiosity even to those who cannot easily read Esperanto.
Kristin Thompson writes: After several months of raised and dashed hopes, the question of who will direct the film of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit remains open. I first weighed in on the question back on October 2 of last year, when this blog was in its infancy. MGM had just announced that they would be making The Hobbit and hoped that Peter Jackson would direct. At that point I was trying to sort out Peter Jackson’s large number of film projects and to explain how his schedule might include time to direct The Hobbit. Subsequently there was a clarification. MGM, which owns the distribution rights to any film version of the novel, would co-produce with New Line, which produced The Lord of the Rings and owns the filmmaking rights for The Hobbit. [More]
Harry Potter’s moon-faced mug is plastered all over the front doors of the Borders bookstore in Altamonte Springs. A life-sized rendering of the star Quidditch Seeker stands just inside the store entrance, and the sales staff wears lanyards bearing more signs of Harry’s seventh coming. Area booksellers can be forgiven for baiting their hooks as the July 21 release of the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling’s series approaches. But in the meantime, a much older — and some say wiser — wizard has risen from a grave deep beyond Middle-earth. This one has slashed through the Hogwarts hoopla and claimed lordship of the best-seller ring, provoking glee among legions of his mostly older, Hobbit-formed fans. [More]
Claire writes: A new translation of the ‘Mabinogion’ by Sioned Davies, Professor of Welsh at Cardiff University, has just been published. These Welsh tales appear in ‘The Tolkien Fan’s Medieval Reader’ by Turgon, though in an older translation. If you’d like to read a modern one, try this version. There’s a review, by the first national poet of Wales, Gwyneth Lewis, from the Guardian newspaper at books.guardian.co.uk.
You can buy a copy on line at all the usual outlets – one which specializes in Welsh books is Gwales at www.gwales.com. If you want the link to this book on the Gwales site, it’s here.