#hobbit readalong

[retellingthehobbit]

Sorry I've been a little quiet here lately! Here's my Public Update on the progress for the next chapter, in honor of Hobbit Day: 1. I am a few pages away from having a "first pass" on a fully colored version of the next chapter, which will be titled "Over the Hill and Across the Water." It will be about 30 pages long. I wanted to have it done by now, But There are Dreams That Cannot Be and There Are Storms We Cannot Weather, so I wouldn't expect it for a while. In the meantime, I post weekly updates of my progress on Patreon-- usually shooting for one page a week, unless some other project comes up.

2. In the middle of all this, I've FINALLY created an official website for this webcomic-- Retellingthehobbit.com! This is an archive of the entire comic, where you can flip through page by page, as well as containing all the About information and social links in one place. It took a very long time to put together, and I had to do a lot of learning on wordpress, hosting, plugins, etc. I'm expecting to run into occasional issues and server problems as I'm making it live for the first time. However, now that it's in place, I'm hoping it will be easier to update in the future.

3. The other big project that's taken up tons of my energy is @lesmisletters, a Dracula-Daily style readalong of Les Miserables. If you want to chat with me in fandom spaces (and you enjoy Les Mis) feel free to check that book club out! We have a discord server book club where we've been analyzing the novel chapter-by-chapter. The next Les Mis Letters readalong begins on January 1st of 2025.

[lesbiansforboromir]

me, casually listening to the sillymarillion: oh they did a bonus episode for ROP teaser releases—LESBIANSFORBOROMIR????

HAH! Jumpscared yah >:) But oh I haven't done enough friendly promo it seems- The Sillymarillion podcast by my dear friend Paul and the lovely Tori is great for Silmarillion readalong and accessibility and they've just started the Lord of the Rings after finishing the Hobbit too. AND They very kindly invited me to the show for a bunch of episodes, I think about four? to talk about Rings of Power before during and after. The eagles are coming extra eps are the ones about RoP. Would recommend just for the laughs :)

[mooberryink]

𝑇𝑜𝑙𝑘𝑖𝑒𝑛'𝑠 𝑇𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑑𝑎𝑦 «Жил-был в норе под землёй хоббит.» - Хоббит, или Туда и обратно, Дж. Р. Р. Толкин "Once upon a time, there lived in a burrow underground a hobbit." - The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by JRR Tolkien Happy Birthday, JRR Tolkien ♡ What a perfect day for celebrating Tolkien. I baked a wintry version of Hobbit Seed Cake (original recipe by Hannah @once.upon.a.september ) with cinnamon & chunks of chocolate. If I could share with my bookstafam, we could have some later with tea while watching the lotr films or flipping through this gorgeous encyclopedia that I got because of my friend, Lisa @shelfdetermined (yeah, because of bookstagram). Since I’m doing the Year of Russian Lit readalong, I decided to feature Хоббит courtesy of my partner & his amazing collection of Russian books. Btw, a bit of exciting news: my partner & I have decided to take part in the lotr virtual challenges to help reach our fitness goals this year—& by that I mean I found out about the challenges & brought them up on a whim & now I might end up regretting it lol. The virtual challenges are based on the lotr film trilogy & follow Frodo’s journey from The Shire to Mount Doom; you can do any distance workout & track your progress on an app. After each leg of the journey (e.g., The Fellowship or Mines of Moria), you're awarded a medal & you can even create your own fellowship with friends. It sounds like a lot of fun if you’re prepared to go the distance—the few hundred miles it takes to get to Mordor. I can already feel the burn lol. 𝑥𝑜 𝑁𝑜𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑖 ▪︎An Encyclopedia of Tolkien: The History and Mythology That Inspired Tolkien’s World by David Day ▪︎Хоббит, или Туда и обратно, Дж. Р. Р. Толкин 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑀𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑜𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑎 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑜𝑏𝑏𝑖𝑡𝑠 https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm9ybM6SeSB/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[savethesilmarils-blog]

Belladona Took

[Note: I think I’ll be organizing my meta posts by topic; this way I can add on to them as I go through chapters/books and get more information]

I am so fascinated by everything said about her, which is...not a lot, but also surprisingly a lot for a character who’s never mentioned again. So, what do we know about the famous mother of Bilbo Baggins?

1. She is legitimately famous. That is the first adjective Tolkien uses to describe her. “the famous Belladonna Took” (The Hobbit, pg 2).

2. She has two sisters, and her father is the same Old Took who seems to be the patriarch of the Took clan. So she’s like Hobbit nobility, or something?

3. “Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she became Mrs. Bungo Baggins” (The Hobbit, pg 4). She definitely had adventures before getting married.

4. She was at least acquaintances with Gandalf, but honestly probably friends or adventure-partners or something. “To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son,” says Gandalf. Not ‘by Old Took’s grandson,’ not ‘by Bungo’s son.’ ‘...by Belladonna Took’s son.’ Belladonna had adventures, and was known to Gandalf. 2+2=4. My brain is exploding with images of a little hobbit girl skipping through fields to the sea with Gandalf trailing behind and it’s making me so happy. ^.^

5. This isn’t quite related, but Tolkien mentions that Bungo built the hobbit hole for Belladonna (with some of her money), so my brain is taking that and running with it, and conjuring images of Belladonna demanding a fancy house as some kind of compensation for marrying a boring Baggins or something. xD I’m also kind of curious how Bungo and Belladonna wound up together? Like it’s outright said that Bagginses are proper (and kinda boring), and Tooks go on adventures and are somewhat scandalous for it. 

So did Bungo pursue Belladonna, or the other way around? This is more headcanon, but I’m picturing this shy little hobbit wringing his handkerchief while knocking on the Tooks’ door xD I mean clearly he consented to go on a boating adventure with her later, so he’s not so adventure-adverse as a respectable hobbit should be...

Anyway, those are most if not all of my thoughts about Belladonna Took. Add her to the list of Middle Earth ladies to look up to!

-Emms

[hotginger-thethird]

I’m dying

Me and @plumwildflowers are doing a Tolkien readalong, starting with the Hobbit. I haven’t even made it to chapter 1 and I’ve already found not one but TWO mistakes on the Professor’s part???

I was just transcribing the runes of The Map like a nerd and there’s 1. One part where he flips the two runes so it’s hw instead of wh and 2. He first mentions that there’s a specific rune for ‘ea’ but then just spells out ‘ea’ with separate runes on the map??

And it’s not the publisher’s fault here because these runes are on the MAP, not just written in the intro. What am I supposed to do with this???

[lady-milford]

God, I haven't posted anything in aaaages...this blog has pretty much just turned into a lurk account huh?

How does one even start writing a post these days? Hell if I know tbh. (did I ever even know? after who knows how many years on tumblr I'm still just as clueless)

Anyway, here's what I wanted to say: I've had a major burst of inspiration lately. I've started playing Middle Earth: Shadow of War and it threw me deep, D E E P into a Tolkien-hyperfixation. As I've been thinking about ways to channel that energy into something at least somewhat productive I've realised that I've never actually read LotR all the way through. (let alone the Silmarillion etc) So I thought: "Hey, blogging was really fun back in the day. Why not make a new blog to accompany your (re-) reading of Tolkien's books?"

Soooo....I guess I'm gonna do just that, starting with the Hobbit.

Now I just need a good, valid name for said blog and then it's go time. (Got any ideas? I'm open to suggestions!)

[lizziestudieshistory]

I've been meaning to ask you have you seen that Silmarillion daily thing? What do you think about it?

So, I had to look this up because I vaguely remember seeing something about a daily Silmarillion but I had no plans in participating in it - only because I've learnt from Dracula Daily that I am horrible with serialised media. I'm impatient and I tend to read things in huge chunks so having things in small sections doesn't really work for me.

So, it's hard to comment because I don't fully know what this will look like. In principle, I think it's a great idea! The Silmarillion is a difficult book for new readers and I know so many people who have picked it up and dropped out because Tolkien inundates the reader with so many names and weird concepts. So, having it serialised to slow your reading AND grtting together a community to read it at the same time will work wonderfully for some people.

However, I'm interested to see how it's delivered. In theory, the Silmarillion sounds like a great text to do this with because it's so episodic. Once the Noldor arrive in Beleriand it jumps around a lot and each chapter forms a contained story in the broader narrative around the Silmarils. But this sounds like they're only covering the Quenta Silmarillion (QS) - which is great I ADORE the QS, and I think it's the bit that grips readers to most. Let's face it the Ainulindalë and Valaquenta are painful at times, even for Tolkien fanatics like me. But as much as I dislike the Ainulindalë and Valaquenta you do need them to understand the QS. Where else are you going to learn about who the Valar and Maiar are, or why song is a legitimate weapon in Arda? You aren't going to truly appreciate the insanity that is Finrod taking on Sauron without the Ainulindalë... I also think it's a massive shame to miss out the Akallabêth, but maybe that's just me 🤷‍♀️

I also don't truly know how they're splitting the book up. I know it's presenting summaries, similar to the YouTube series doing a similar concept from people like Tolkien Untangled and Voice of Geekdom (I would recommend both!) but how is it going to split the story? How is it going to help new keep track of family trees, kingdoms, and non-elven races when sometimes they disappear from the story for chapters? Some of this is difficult enough when you're reading through the book in a week or so, reading through it over a year could be very difficult!

I'm also slightly confused on how they're only presenting the parts with "concrete" dates. A LOT of the First Age is a mess chronologically. Oh, we have some births, deaths, and battles - but a lot of the details are a complete mystery when trying to create a timeline. We don't even know when Maedhros was born, or who fathered Gil-Galad (sorry had to bring this one up, he's my favourite 😅) - so how can we adequately cover a timeline when we don't know what all of the timeline is? Tbh I'm very confused by the schedule and the "welcome" email left me more confused... However, I don't think chronological is the right approach to take for this particular book.

I have now subscribed so I can see what I think once we start getting content. I'm glad they're encouraging readers so follow along in the book because so much is lost when you get summaries, even really good summaries. Personally, I doubt the daily newsletter format will work in reality for this one, the story is just too big and messy... But I'm intrigued, and I think it could be done well if it was run differently. I'd explain how I'd run it but this is getting very long, but I am happy to run through how I'd run a Silmarillion readalong elsewhere if you're interested in my ramblings on that 😂

Thanks for asking though! This has been an interesting one to think about! At the end of the day, I might have questions on the format but if it'll get people to read Tolkien's work outside The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings then I am a VERY happy bunny.

[beckzorz]

Marvelous Hobbit Readalong

Hey lovelies! Folks were talking about doing a Hobbit readalong here and I am going to set something up!

Let me know if you’re interested, or if you want to help facilitate!

Also, when would be a good time to start, assuming it’ll be 7 weeks?

Tagging some folks from that post: @kentuckybarnes @evanstar @page @eyesfixedonthesun22 @itsfknshelby @tropicalcap @themaccafordnsons

[thorinsbeard]

I am gonna go look for my hobbit/lotr books (I have a need to reread them now) I miss the days where there were readalong events on here. ;;

[bookexploreralyssa]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ And so my Tolkien journey comes to (somewhat) of an end. This felt more like Return of the Feels as I am definitely sad to be leaving Middle Earth. After The Silmarillion and then my reread of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, I can can say that these books are closer to my heart than ever before. Tolkien’s world is so detailed that it can’t help but feel real, and as always it was a pleasure to return of the characters. 🧙🏻‍♂️🧝🏻‍♂️ Anyone who is hesitant about starting these should really give them a chance- they’re rather short as fantasy books go and really quite approachable in content! Special thanks to my buddy readers that began with the @fellowshipofthemist readalong who were there to share thoughts and feelings! And here is to reading Beren and Lúthien next. 🧝🏻‍♀️

[lilymaidofgallifrey]

It’s December First here in New Zealand. So I started rereading Lord of the Rings as part of @logarithmicpanda‘s LotR Readalong.

So far I’ve read three chapters. It’s taking me slightly longer than usual to read, because it is quite heavy, so I don’t know if I’ll get Fellowship of the Rings finished by Dec 12th, but hopefully I’ll finish the trilogy by the end of summer. 

I’m enjoying it more than the first time I read it, probably because I was like 12 and it was the longest book I had ever read at that point, and also I’ve seen the movies about 90000 times by now so I’m picking up on references and quotes a lot better. 

One thing I do like so far that wasn’t in the movie, was that some of the dwarves (presumably the ones from the Hobbit) turned up to visit Bilbo again, which I liked. It was nice to know that his old friends still visited (and presumably ate him out of house and home). 

Another thing I had completely forgotten was that it was like 20 something years between Bilbo disappearing during his party and Frodo setting off on his journey. 

I also love how the elves are just really melodramatic and salty. It’s hilarious.

Hopefully I get through a bit more than three chapters tomorrow, because this book is LONG!

[curufins-smile]

I will ask: How long have you been in the Tolkien fandom (not necessarily online, but just how long have you liked Tolkien) :)

Thanks for asking :)

I’ve loved Tolkien since my Uncle read me the Hobbit when I was six. I read LotR soon after that, because I’d definitely read it by the time I went to see the first film! So, since 1999 :D

I started lurking around the silm fandom in late 2013 early 2014, and started contributing during the readalong in summer 2014 :)

[darrengallagherauthor-blog]

Day 29 of #FebruaryFilmFrenzy "THATS A WRAP!" Wrap up. . So huge thanks to @read.fast.die.hard85 for hosting this photo challenge for February. . This month was a decent month. It started off with Once Upon A River with the #BookKnights (not included cause it was a library book). Christine readalong hosted by @teacupbookworld & @read.fast.die.hard85 #driveordiereadalong thanks guys! The Hobbit for BookKnights. I've 40 pages left in Annihilation but that will be done tonight or tomorrow. I've book 1 read in Books of Blood for the #bookstaghouls 🙈. And of course The Cucumber Man..😃😉. https://www.instagram.com/p/B9K9w_1J3uR/?igshid=1a7tabvsrxnhp

[savethesilmarils-blog]

Hobbit Anachronisms

So there’s already an excellent post about why there are certain anachronisms in The Hobbit, and I’m not going to recap the whole thing here. Basically, though, Tolkien framed the story as a translation of an older narrative, and claimed the anachronisms were inserted to make the text more understandable and relatable to the reader. So when a Christmas tree is mentioned, it doesn’t mean that there was actually a Christmas tree in Hobbiton.

This post is going to be more a collection of all the anachronisms, with possibly some thoughts along the way? We’ll see how it goes.

1. Page 27: “’Great elephants!” said Gandalf.”

Elephants?!??

I mean, I know there’s oliphaunts, but those are near-myth for hobbits (thought likely not for Gandalf) (fun fact, according to Wikipedia, Clan Oliphant is a Highland Scottish clan???). But elephants are entirely ‘real world!’ Unless this is Gandalf breaking the fourth wall...

1a. Page 32: This isn’t an anachronism per se, but “There was a fine, toothsome smell.” What the heck is ‘toothsome’???

-emms

[the-octavo]

2017 TBR Tag

Thanks to @baldursgatekeeper for tagging me!

I have eight books I’d like to finish by the end of the year, which I think is ambitious but doable. I’m currently five books short of my reading challenge, but given I’m more than halfway through four books at the moment I don’t think I’ll have trouble completing it.

The books I’m currently reading are:

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb. I need to return this one to the library in the next two days so it’s lucky I’m nearly done. I’m enjoying this more than I did Assassin’s Apprentice, and I think I’m a little in love with Kettricken, she’s an amazing character.

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe. I’m listening to Dark Emu as an audiobook. It’s a non-fiction book arguing that modern Australia’s perception of pre-invasion Aboriginal people as primitive hunter-gatherers is largely incorrect, and presenting evidence for much more settled and prosperous societies. I’m finding it really interesting, and the author is currently doing trials on the use of native Australian plants for large-scale food production.

Code of Silence by Colin Dillon. Another non-fiction book (that makes three this month, which is more than I’ve read all year). It presents the story of the career of Colin Dillon, who was the first Indigenous Australian to be a commissioned Police Inspector and whose bravery was vital to the inquiry into police corruption in Queensland in the 80s.

Shadowkings by Michael Cobley. This is a fantasy novel I got from a secondhand bookstore on a whim and I’m not impressed with it. I want to finish it since I’m more than halfway through, but it’s definitely very far down my list of priorities. 

As well as finishing those, I want to read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien as part of @logarithmicpanda‘s readalong.

If anyone wants to do this, please tag me so I can see :)

[rantreader]

“Frodo did not offer her any tea.” 

Quality British/Hobbit stuff yous.