Following family tradition, the bedtime book I read to my near-four-year-old son on Christmas Eve was “The Night Before Christmas”, aka “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, by Clement Clarke Moore*. I used my mum’s old copy of the poem, a…
Should you care whether your academic monograph or edited collection has an appealing cover? Does it matter? And can you/should you get involved? My answer to all of the above is yes! I know there are brilliant academic books out…
*Update – June 2017 I am very pleased to announce that all four sessions on J.R.R. Tolkien I proposed for the International Medieval Congress at Leeds 2017 have been accepted! This will be the third consecutive year of papers on…
Since the publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages (ed. Dimitra Fimi and Andrew Higgins), many readers have been sharing stories about the book, first reviews, as well as pictures of their own copy. Here is a selection!
During the last few months I have been buried in my cave… er… office to finish the OTHER book, and I have gone through a pretty traumatic family emergency (all OK now!). Adding to this mix the mad marking load…
Catherine Butler’s recent blog post about J.K. Rowling’s control over the Harry Potter world and narratives via social media (stemming from her article in The Conversation) got me thinking again about an issue I explored in my book on Tolkien.…
Just a very quick post to respond to the recent hype over the discovery of two “new” Tolkien poems. I am sure you will have seen the news on the Oxford Mail, to begin with, followed in quick succession by…
As I have written in previous entry, I am currently working on a monograph on Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy for the Palgrave Macmillan Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature series. I have, therefore, been reading and re-reading primary and…
Well, the autumn term is nearly upon me, but I did manage to escape to Oxford a couple of weeks ago to take part in Oxonmoot, Tolkien Society’s annual gathering that combines a conference, art exhibition, performances, etc. Oxonmoot has been…
I am on annual leave at last (hooray!) and it’s time for another long-overdue update. It’s been a very busy few months, mainly taken up by working on two books (!) and being involved in a number of events. First…
