Meanwhile, in Rivendell . . .

Saddle up, buckos!  In case you were wondering, yes, Rachel and Heidi and I are indeed returning to your blogging spaces with another week of uproarious Western fun this year!   2025's event will take place from August 25-29, and we need your help to round out the event.  We can't wait to read all of your reviews, lists, character studies, thematic analyses, and so forth.  As per usual, you may also expect a tag to fill out, and most likely some games and/or giveaways to add spice to the proceedings. 😉  In the meantime, spread the word with one or two of these delightful buttons made by Rachel! See you there! 

"April is upon us, pitiless and young and harsh," as Edna St. Vincent Millay so justly expressed it, and I can think of no better time to dive into the work of my beloved Virginia Woolf.  Woolf is probably my top favorite author at this point, so I wanted her to have at least one dedicated post on this blog.  And, since I've officially read all of her novels now, a ranking post naturally seemed the way to go. Here, then, are my thoughts — in a few nutshells — on Woolf's long-form fiction, from the worst of it to the best. 😍 (General content warning for all of these books:  As you might expect from literature of this time period, there are, unfortunately, throwaway racial slurs or instances of casual racism peppered throughout most of them.) # 10.   Night and Day   (1919) “When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?” Babe, no.  If Olivia Rishell is telling you that you're taking parlor politics too far, then...

Hey, as long as I get my yearly recap post published during the first quarter of the new year, it still counts, right?  (Even if I squeeze it in at the eleventh hour.  Ahem.) Present tardiness aside, I do usually try to post at least one "top ten" list at the beginning of each calendar year, reflecting on the best of the new-to-me media I consumed the last year.  In 2024, however, it would appear that most of said new-to-me media was . . . unfortunately mid.  Thus, where I would usually select ten favorites in each category, I'm limiting myself to five this time around and just compiling everything into the one post.  But we're also expanding the categories to include music, so I think we'll have plenty of material to cover. 😉 "The hour is late and bed beckons," so without further ado, let's get into it. ⸻ ❧  Best Books #5.   Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton "... details the story of a man who falls in love with his wife's cousin and the trage...

His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him. A Christmas Carol , by Charles Dickens ⸻ You know them, you love them — expressive little stuffed animals so authentically wrinkled that they appear to be made out of nothing but yards of felt and puddles of toddlers' saliva.  But what commerce, you may ask, have these children's toys, these Muppets, with pillars of Victorian literature? According to Brian Henson, quite a bit. Setting his sights on none other than Charles Dickens, Himself™, Henson released A Muppet Christmas Carol just in time for Christmas 1992, dedicating the film to his recently deceased father, Jim, Muppet mastermind.  In so doing, he initiated decades of Yuletide traditions for families innumerable — presumably, at least.  He certainly did for my family.  My siblings and I grew up watching the oddly corporeal Muppet ghosts cavorting around Michael Caine's relentlessly stoic Scrooge on at least a semi-annual basis. And yet, if I'm to be ru...

Hi, everyone!  I thought that this might be the month that broke my posting streak, but it turns out that old goals  habits die hard, so here we are. 😉   The title is pretty self-explanatory; I thought it would be fun to match atmospheric books, movies, etc. to iconic fall-time hobbies.  (As always, use your own discretion with these; the media listed here encompass a wide variety of content levels.) source If you like hiking , try The Fellowship of the Ring ( by J.R.R. Tolkien) for the ultimate autumnal quest experience, with plenty of cozy cottagecore moments, plenty of mountains, and plentyyyyyyyy of walking. 😜 If you like baking , try Brave (2012) for a tart, sweet exploration of what it means to be family. If you like  leaf peeping , try  In the Forests of Serre  ( by Patricia A. McKillip)  for the chance to lose yourself in a mysterious forest full of fiery color and breathtaking magic. If you like decorating , try Ever Afte...

Well, folks, another Tolkien Blog Party is drawing to a close.  Today is the last day of Rachel's shindig, and therefore, high time for me to post my answers to this year's tag.  Before we begin, though, a moment of silence for the end of a (sort of) era.  For the last several years I've used collages from a gorgeous Tumblr series as graphics for my tag answers, but at long last, I've used all or most of them at least once before.  I don't particularly want to recycle them, so I'm not including any in this post, but I think that Tumblr creator has made other Middle-earth inspired collections, so maybe I can scope out some new ones to use in coming years!  Anyway.  RIP, "modern LOTR aesthetics".  You did us a solid. ✌ On a cheerier note, read on for the 2024 tag questions and my answers thereto.  ⸻ 1. The Shire: What place in Middle-earth do you think would feel the most like home for you? Well, that's the million-dollar question, isn't it?...

Greetings, my dear Shirelings!  Yesterday was Hobbit Day, and it marked the commencement of what is probably my favorite annual online event:  Rachel's Tolkien Blog Party.  Check out Rachel's kick-off post here  and be sure to enter the fabulous giveaway she's hosting in honor of the party as well. I plan to answer this year's tag questions later this week, but for today's post, I'm casting my mind back to this time last year.  During 2023's party, Rachel hosted a game that gave players the opportunity to build a hobbit name for themselves.  (You can check out that post by clicking on this link .)  Per the rules of the game, my hobbit name turned out to be Cloverpin Sackcobble , and you know something?  I actually love it.  "Cloverpin" as a hobbit name?  Are you kidding me??  So cute, so versatile.  Fantastic. Anyway.  I enjoyed playing that game so much that it got me thinking about what my life would actually look like ...