Oxford’s Bodleian Library is showing of JRR Tolkien’s in a new exhibition of his drawings. BBC Arts have all the information you need and lots of pictures for those who can’t make it to the City of Dreaming Spires. Courtesy: [BBC Arts]
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Reading Time: 15 minutes Between the Bookends, Image: Sophie Brown Welcome to this month’s bumper Between the Bookends. If it’s felt like a while since our last post, that’s because we’ve switched dates; Between the Bookends will now be appearing on the first of every month to bring you our latest reading discoveries. In the […]
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Historian E.H. Kern has some thoughts. Behold—here they are.
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This article continues the thoughts on the importance of stories that I touched on in “Madeleine L’Engle on Courage From Stories” earlier this week.
Continue ReadingIn a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” –J.R.R. Tolkien, The […]
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This month in Between the Bookends, the GeekMoms have been reading about alien parasites, parenting skills, dark fantasy, climbing Everest, and the songs that tell the story of modern Britain.
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Best friend to JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, Charles Williams is the sometimes overlooked – but incredibly influential – member of their writing group, “the Inklings.”
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Just before the holidays, my youngest son and I performed our usual mid-December ritual: Skip school to see The Hobbit on opening day.
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The final, epic trailer for the last Hobbit movie is here. Wow.
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This all-ages graphic novel features a feisty, adventurous girl seeking her lost brother in a fantasy medieval setting.
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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, the father of modern fantasy writing, was born 122 years ago, making this (in accordance with Shire nomenclature) his twelvety-second birthday.
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Are you looking for a last-minute gift idea for your favorite Tolkien-fan-geek? Look no further than your favorite bookstore for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Chronicles: Art & Design
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Since you’re reading GeekDad, you’re likely at least considering going to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Here are 9 things parents (and everyone else) should know about the film.
Continue ReadingAnnual letters from Santa, inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s family tradition.
Continue ReadingBring a little Middle Earth into your home this fall.
Continue ReadingThe Magical Books exhibition at Oxford’s Bodleian Library explores the incredible imaginative worlds of children’s fantasy literature through a variety of rare and interesting maps, books, and objects.
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Park the gadgets and keep the road trip bonding flowing with our extensive list of great audio books the whole family will love.
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Yes, Tolkien’s works keep coming — from beyond the grave. A hitherto unknown poem that Tolkien worked on and never finished was released by Tolkien’s publisher yesterday. Called The Fall of Arthur, the poem is a “new Arthurian epic” retold by Tolkien.
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In my nerdy Internet, the forces of Facebook, Google+, Twitter and George Takei act like a powerful tractor beam to suck up geeky stuff and spit it my way. A lot of junk ends up in the trash compactor on my detention level. But some cool stuff floats to the surface. Here are five examples of recent flotsam and jetsam I’ve collected. Stand back! And be amazed.
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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles II gets behind the scenes of the creation and special effects that transformed actors into Tolkien creatures.
Continue ReadingA fantastically-visualized timeline of the “life” of The One Ring (to rule them all) from J.R.R. Tolkien’s stories. The graphic covers both time, geography, and possession in a gorgeous layout. Well done!
Continue ReadingFrom my point of view, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a far better film than any of The Lord of the Rings films. I know this is a contrarian opinion, so let me explain.
Continue ReadingThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is perhaps the most expected journey audiences will go on this year. We’ve all been madly waiting to venture back to Middle-earth — back to Peter Jackson’s cinematic version of Tolkien’s world. The anticipation, and …
Continue ReadingFor my nephew, I made this Mine of Moria-themed cake, which I managed to put together in about two hours. Making this monstrosity, about 12″ x 18″ in the end, was actually not that hard, and as you can see, …
Continue ReadingThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is due out in theaters in a month, launching Peter Jackson’s vision of the opening bars of the tale of the titular hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. It seems like an excellent time then to take a …
Continue ReadingGeekDad Community member Martin Williams shares some thoughts on reading The Hobbit with his children, before the upcoming movie changes the whole experience.
Continue ReadingNoble Smith’s book The Wisdom of the Shire: A Short Guide to a Long and Happy Life (Thomas Dunne Books, 224 pp., $22.99), released today (October 30), is a definitive guide to Tolkien’s worldview. Luckily, this book is no dry …
Continue Reading“It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends” is what the writer Joan Didion once said about her experiences traveling to a new land (in her case, New York City). It’s also true …
Continue ReadingMy four children all have different levels of geekiness but, so far, my youngest son (13) is the only one even mildly interested in The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I devoured those books in …
Continue ReadingGeeks cried “Huzzah!” this week when, in a curious “worlds collide” collision between fantasy and science, a crater on the planet Mercury was named after J.R.R. Tolkien.
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