Westmoot 2026 The first Westmoot was held from May 9th-11th in Kansas City, Missouri, at the National WWI Museum and Memorial. It featured a range of presentations, including talks, quizzes, lectures, workshops, pe...

Westmoot 2026’s theme is Hope and Eucatastrophe and we want your papers! Be sure to submit a proposal for our event in Minneapolis, May 22-24, 2026! www.tolkiensociety.org/events/westm...

Bronze Age Fellowship of the Ring, nine stout fellas of varying sizes.

Realized it’s been a while since I posted my Bronze Age Fellowship of the Ring so here the lads are again

Yeah, it seems like people are wildly overestimating Bluesky's influence here. We're a relatively small internet niche. That's why it's usually better to be here than on the bigger platforms, but it also means this site lacks the sway of a giant website run by a technofascist.

Sure, I'm in favor of civil disobedience when the law is unjust. I'm not sure this plan would pan out as easily as you expect it to, in that this would more or less amount to not offering access in those countries (if they're blocked due to noncompliance), but at least you came with suggestions.

Westmoot 2026 The first Westmoot was held from May 9th-11th in Kansas City, Missouri, at the National WWI Museum and Memorial. It featured a range of presentations, including talks, quizzes, lectures, workshops, pe...

Westmoot returns in 2026!

Our new annual event - Westmoot - returns to Minneapolis on May 22-24. Bookings are now open, and we've kept the price the same as 2025 to help keep costs down. Look out for more info, including guests and more!

Follow @westmoot.org

www.tolkiensociety.org/events/westm...

Again: what do you propose? Be specific. Does Bluesky simply stop offering access in those countries? And if so, how does that help fix the laws?

What do you propose? That the platform simply doesn't exist in any of those countries? The governments won't change their laws because people can't access Bluesky.

A beautifully illuminated example of a #EYAMedieval document from our collection. This is a Psalter for Sacrum Use from the 14th century. #ExploreYourArchive #ExploreYourArchives #illuminatedmanuscripts

I only get to some of my mugs when the ADHD is strong and I haven't kept up with the dishes. I'd hate to see how that would go if I had a hundred backups 😅

Looking wistfully at these 2013 numbers...

Yeah, my mug situation feels silly and I don't let myself buy more because I have no need for them, but I have, like...10? Where would you even put this many mugs?

Image reads: A Thanksgiving note from Bookshop.org CEO and founder Andy Hunter

Image reads: “Did you know that Black Friday got its name because it helps small businesses go from “in the red” (losing money) to “in the black” (solvent)? It’s no exaggeration that a strong holiday season is necessary for most local bookstores’ survival. And their survival is critical to us as readers, writers, and book lovers. Without booksellers’ passion and advocacy, our literary culture would fade fast.

Image reads: This holiday is about being thankful and connecting with the humans you care about: your family, whether they’re biological or chosen. We are thankful for our extended book family—the authors, booksellers, and readers—and we’re fighting for them. Please fight for them, too, by choosing to support local independent bookstores this holiday season. We are all part of the same chosen family—built of readers who are trying to preserve a human-centered future with a beloved bookstore in every town.

Image reads: Your purchase on Bookshop.org supports more than 2,500 independent bookstores (90% of the bookstores in the U.S.). They are thankful for you, too.

A note from our CEO Andy Hunter expressing our gratitude for our extended book family and stressing the importance of supporting independent bookstores this holiday season and beyond 💜

I quit the former Twitter two years ago this week, and I am here to tell you that my online life got a lot better for having left it. In two years I've not been tempted to go back, and I haven't felt any penalty in either career or community for not being there. It's nice to be here and not there.

Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth Publication date: November 28, 2025!

We're super excited to share that "Queer Approaches to Tolkien" will be available in paperback on Nov 28th (less than 2 weeks from now!), and in digital format a few weeks afterwards. We can't wait to check this out!!

robinareid.substack.com/p/queer-appr...

This clearly shouldn't be my first response, but I just find myself so remarkably annoyed not by the fact that my field is being co-opted by the worst people, but that it is being co-opted by the dumbest people, just the thickest, most arrogantly superficial 'trousered apes' imaginable.

look I know being an engaged citizen IS the work of democracy but it is also the work of elected officials not to create situations where everyone has to be mobilized all the time to prevent them from allowing some kind of Dickensian horror on a Sunday night while you're in between loads of laundry

Screenshot of the top of a Bsky feed, with a red circle around the hamburger menu in the top left.

Wondering why no one likes your posts anymore, even among your friends? It's because @jay.bsky.team and team have decided to hide a huge amount of content from all of our feeds by default.

Here's how to turn it off.

First go to the hamburger menu in the upper left corner

Respectfully, hell yeah.

Have been feeling sad so I reread Persuasion. Am not sure that was the right call. Now feeling sad and yearning.

Also, the age gap between me and Anne Elliot is increasing rapidly lmao

American with electric kettle: I pretty much always boil water in the kettle and pour it into the pot, because at least with my setup, it's much faster.

...and less than 24 hours later Condé Nast has fired Lex and the rest of the Teen Vogue political desk, even as stories like this were bringing huge numbers of readers to the site

[a nobody walks into the thread] Finrod, the worst? Say more?

Our Call for Papers for the 2025 PPP Moot happening December 18-21 is here, as well as one for activities and entertainments! And if you’re wondering more about this event, check out our website for details, registration and more: theprancingponypodcast.com/moot/

New Tolkien book – <em>The Bovadium Fragments</em> – is satire on industrialisation HarperCollins has announced that J.R.R. Tolkien's The Bovadium Fragments will be released on 9 October 2025.

Have you heard about The Bovadium Fragments, the new #Tolkien book published three weeks ago (and the last to be edited by Christopher Tolkien)?

The Fragments are a satire on the impact of cars, and highlight again Tolkien's concern for the environment.

www.tolkiensociety.org/2025/06/new-...

Yes. The HP and LOTR movies were all coming out at the same time, we were seeing both - and Star Wars, and Pirates, etc. I'm not saying most millennials have read the books, but on the few occasions I've heard someone say they've never seen LOTR, the reaction from everyone else has been surprise.

I believe people who misuse Tolkien to advance fascism should have a brief but life-changing encounter with World War II–era Christopher Lee

Let’s be real: approximately ten seconds after you told Tolkien that Catholics couldn’t go to Mass because they were afraid of being disappeared by agents of the government, he’d be out there protesting.

Tolkien, on the record, hated Nazis, hated Tyrants, hated Government Control & Surveillance, hated bullies, and especially hated bullies who enact violence on innocent people while trying to obfuscate that it's all about power.

Not sure that's a representative test case. Millennials literally grew up with these movies. (I'm not a representative test case either, to be clear, just in the opposite direction.)

If you need to explain to an idiot why Tolkien would have despised these goons, I have already grabbed a picture of the relevant passage (and I doubt I was the first):