The Fireside

  In a rather surprising move, the US Tolkien publisher (now William Morrow) are offering their own Collector's Editions of the primary Tolkien Middle-earth books. However, they are different - and better! - than HarperCollins' (UK) variation of them! Not to speak ill of any particular publisher, though typically  the UK editions have been overall nicer - even when both publishers offer the exact same version, the UK one tends to favour better materials or production.  This has changed (a possible one-time thing) by William Morrow offering better binding, a ribbon-marker and stained edges to line of publisher-labelled 'Collector's Editions.'  The item that has the publication date the farthest away is The Lord of the Rings  Boxed Set, coming out Nov 5. Below are some photos (courtesy of Amazon (US site: .com), along with the ISBNs of the titles in this format.  The Hobbit :  9780063396203 The Lord of the Rings  (Boxed Set):  9780063421240 The...

The Folio Society's limited-edition of The Lord of the Rings has sold out in about 36 hours after it was announced. Sadly, I didn't get the chance to write about it here, as I often enjoy doing about new Tolkien books/editions. In their catalogue, they've been publishing editions of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings , and The Silmarillion . With the release of the limited-edition of The Lord of the Rings by Alan Lee, there's obviously been requests for matching editions of The Hobbit and The Silmarillion . THE HOBBIT For The Hobbit , they have four artists they could go with to produce a similar edition which would match the recent Lord of the Rings . First up, is John Howe, whose Smaug (above) is among my favourite Tolkien pieces. John Howe has sort-of-but-not-really illustrated The Hobbit before: he did the infamous pop-up book. This would be a wonderful occasion to include some of his newer pieces related to The Hobbit that haven't been published yet (aside ...

  First of all, I wish to state that this blog post (well, all, really) are my own personal opinion. I am not 'attacking' anybody's personal collections, just stating my disinterest in some of these following items. There are some Tolkien items that I wish could be wiped from existence, or rather; never see or hear about again. They are as follows, as well was my reasoning. It's not unjustified dislike.  Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings (Part 1 ONLY, that is) film This film has many fans. Most of them, saw it close to its initial release, and was their first taste of Tolkien. That's all well and good, as we see things differently as children than we do as adults. (That's why I cannot watch the original Ninja Turtles cartoon NOW, and why I laughed the whole way through this movie; as I saw it when I was 17.) That being said: this is not a good movie. Take off the nostalgia goggles, it sucks. Here are a few reasons why, taken from this article: http://flyin...