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Thanks for sharing this, johobbit — sad news, but he certainly lived a very long and productive life. There's nothing on the BBC's website yet, surprisingly but I've just found a report from the Guardian. He certainly did an incredible amount of work to continue his father's legacy and bring his unpublished works to light. R.I.P. Christopher Tolkien.

Thank you for the link. There are several things on Facebook now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/epm420/christopher_tolkien_has_died/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Here's a comment someone made on there:

I reckon the Third Age just ended.

The Third Age ended with ... the departure of Elrond ... over the sea.

If JRR and Edith were Beren and Luthien, then their descendant Christopher was clearly Elrond - although 'lesser' than they, he was the final curator and preserver of ancient lore, and incorruptible, resisting the polluting taints of commercialism.

In the 2000s I read through a lot of the background books, but only bought 'Return of the Shadow' (2002), which is the 6th in the series. This is the first of the books about LOTR. I've also got Unfinished Tales (2010).
They are only a taste of what Christopher did, but I am so grateful to him for his huge task, completed so very diligently. His father's attention to detail was clearly inherited.

johobbit wrote:And here is a clip of Christopher Tolkien reading the final scenes in The Lord of the Rings. I cannot hear this without weeping. So powerfully moving.

"I will not say, do not weep; for not all tears are an evil."

(I had tears in my eyes too... thanks, johobbit.)

Rather sad news. He will be missed.

I'm so glad that he managed to finish The Fall of Gondolin before he left us. I feel a special connection to Gondolin, and had been hoping for that book for years - and he decided to produce it, as the last book he made.

What a loyalty he showed to his father, spending so much of his own life to make his father's works available to the world! Amazing

Here's an interesting article written about the geographical locations that may have inspired Tolkien...
I recently joined The Tolkien Society on Facebook, and I am getting huge amounts of information from it. Mostly more than I can soak up.

https://arda.ir/the-tale-of-the-annotated-map-and-tolkien-hidden-riddles/?fbclid=IwAR2HofVWM-NyOTmtAWlfqXUuSqNSRqOO27u9WCQSx4xlONM5adE7wCHDOqI

Heads up: Today Andy Serkis is reading The Hobbit, all in one sitting, I believe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/thehobbitath ... /gallery/0

It really is marvelous. He began at 5 a.m. EDT, and has not lost any of his grace and enthusiasm for the reading. The voices he portrays are wonderful, including Gollum/Sméagol's (of course!) and the spiders. Wish I could have heard him act Beorn. Can hardly wait for Bilbo's conversation with Smaug! I have not heard nearly all of the reading, but what I have watched, I am impressed. He is even dressed somewhat hobbitish, with a cozy vest.

Preciousssssssssss! Thanks for sharing that, johobbit — I should check it out as well.

Here is the link to the full 10 & 1/2 hours: https://youtu.be/roSYIOY7xcs

And if you want something shorter "The Riddles in the Dark" chapter is not to be missed: https://youtu.be/YSeVHqp2eQA

When my 98 year old uncle died a year ago now, we had the privilege of choosing some books from his vast library: there was a 1969 beautiful one-volume hardcover edition of The Lord of the Rings, with extremely thin paper, so that the three volumes in one is only 1 & 1/2" thick!

Anyway, my husband is reading through this amazing story again, using Uncle Edgar's edition. Given the fact that it is such a high quality copy, it has been very disappointing to find a number of editing errors.

The most humorous one is in the chapter, "Shelob's Lair". Shelob was after Frodo, gaining by the second, when Sam desperately called out that he was coming to help his master, but immediately

A long, clammy hand went over [Sam's] mouth and another caught him by the neck, while something wrapped itself about his leg. Taken off his guard he toppled backwards into the arms of his attacker.

"Got him!", hissed Gollum in his ear. "At last, my previous, we've got him, yes the nasssty hobbit. ... "

Well, we cracked up at that one. If there was to be an error there, how utterly apropos!

"At last, my previous..." Oh gosh, I'll never be able to look at Gollum and his obsession with the Ring in quite the same way again...

A Virtual Tour of Hobbiton?

Ooh, I was fiddling around with Google Maps, and I tried looking up the road outside Matamata, New Zealand, that leads to the Hobbiton Movie Location.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buckland+Road,+Waikato/@-37.8575785,175.6821986,270m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6d6dab3758482d8b:0x8e5d23e03f495fc4!8m2!3d-37.8790418!4d175.6920897

If you go onto Satellite View, you can zoom in and find Hobbiton. You can also use the Street View figure, which you can pop onto the paths between the hobbit holes, and then look at the surrounding area - including tourists, hobbit gardens, and holes. and follow the way around.

Please let me know if you have managed to follow this, and to find your way to Hobbiton?

[Alternative way to look for it: look up Buckland Road, Matamata 3472, New Zealand, and scroll north from the location it gives you (the car park) to the actual place. You can then zoom in and play about with it.]