The Tolkien Podcast

Send us Fan Mail NEWS: "The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past" (Or The Tom Bombadil movie) has been announced as in development. Peter Jackson introduced Stephen Colbert who made the explanation of how the development process started. In this episode we look closely at who is busy with preproduction on "The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt For Gollum" film, including concept art...

Send us Fan Mail "Three Rings for the Elven-Kings" is the start of the famous verse from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings that continues and eventually quotes the inscription on The One Ring itself, put there by Sauron to control all of the rings of power. In this episode of The Tolkien Podcast the origin, ownership and bittersweet end of the rings is explained! Support the sh...

Send us Fan Mail Tolkien is known for his language creation, but he was also masterful at creating calendars for the cultures and peoples that inhabit Middle-earth. The Shire calendar is beautifully practical - twelve months, thirty days each. Every month lines up neatly with the phases of the moon. That makes it much more regular than our messy Gregorian calendar, with its whole "thirty days...

Send us Fan Mail In 2001, a film many thought would ruin a movie studio — a big budget fantasy film based on books by J.R.R. Tolkien — hit theaters on Dec. 19. It blew even the highest opening weekend predictions completely out of the water and went on to make and change cinema history. Next year the 25th Anniversary of the the LORD OF THE RINGS film trilogy will start with the extended editions r...

Send us Fan Mail We start with a most remarkable letter from Tolkien available on auction today, the highest-priced Tolkien artifacts / books ever sold and then launch into a gift guide with some pretty amazing discounts available now, at least in the U.S., maybe everywhere. But long after those discounts are gone, here is a helpful list of Tolkien-themed gifts. In this episode we use affiliate li...

Send us Fan Mail With a stage play about J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis currently running  — a popular topic — we examine how the myth maker who died more than a half century ago has himself become a myth. Support the show Contact: TheTolkienPodcast@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail While moving recently, to a fourth-floor apartment with no elevator, I had to carefully evaluate which book — including which Tolkien books — are worth boxing, lifting and moving and keeping, in the face of space restrictions and physical exhaustion. What's on your Tolkien bookshelf or what's in your Tolkien library? We take a look at the essential books that make up the...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Tolkien Podcast we discuss a hidden gem THE ATLAS OF MIDDLE-EARTH and how it helps readers of THE HOBBIT, THE LORD OF THE RINGS and THE SILMARILLION enhance their reading experience. We also take a look at how its late creator, Karen Wynn Fonstad, produced the work as a fan turned creator, with host Larry D. Curtis. Support the show Contact: TheTolkienPodcas...

Send us Fan Mail J.R.R. Tolkien's THE SILMARILLION provides the cosmology behind his best know works THE LORD OF THE RINGS and THE HOBBIT. It presents all that came before, preparing Middle-earth for the War of the Ring. But lacking the same storytelling structure of those best known works, Tolkien's legendarium can present challenges to readers. Here we talk strategies, resources and ti...

Send us Fan Mail Unlike many of the servants of Middle-earth's Dark Lord, The Mouth of Sauron was a mortal man who rose through the ranks to become the general and communicator of the great flaming eye. On The Tolkien Podcast, we read from select passages and discuss the person destined to help rule Middle-earth — if Sauron had won the War of the Ring.  Looking for a beautiful, perfect and un...

Send us Fan Mail Appearing only in a few pages of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, with few mentions elsewhere, and not appearing in most adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS, Tom Bombadil has always captured the imagination of readers. We look at who Tom is, which is really more an examination of WHAT Tom is. And, we look carefully at the recent and significant depiction of the merry...

Send us Fan Mail Tolkien's Middle-earth included wizards, from nearly the start of THE HOBBIT published in 1937. From there The Professor included wizards Gandalf the Grey, and Radagast the Brown woven throughout his tale. When THE LORD OF THE RINGS was published Saruman the White was added to the wizard ranks and the mystery expanded from there. Deep in Tolkien's other writings were fra...

Send us Fan Mail Sir Richard Taylor, knighted in 2010 and named New Zealand's Man of the Year in 2012, has won five of the six Academy Awards he was nominated for. He co-founded Weta Workshop with his now wife Tanya Rodger and is responsible for the miniatures (bigitures), costumes, prosthetics, props and weapons on screen in Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS film trilogy. His crew also...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Tolkien Podcast, The Return of the Balrog, we take a breakneck-speed look at the history of Tolkien's fantasy realm of Middle-earth and its context in Arda. The super-quick tour isn't concerned with names and dates but aims to provide a big-picture glance to provide context for history's most cinematic balrog — called the Flame of Udûn by Gand...

Send us Fan Mail Balrogs, creatures of shadow and flame in J.R.R. Tolkien's universe are, pardon the pun, a topic of hot debate. They are also cool, as, well, cool as hell ( Udûn .) In this episode we take a walk through the valley of the shadow to discuss these powerful, captivating and often debated creatures, and take on the old debate: wings vs. no wings. Please visit and share: https://t...

Send us Fan Mail J.R.R. Tolkien published a lot of material. With the help of his son and literary executor, there is a wealth of published content and commentary, including non-Middle-earth fiction, art, his essays and letters and some excellent writings about The Professor. So, as a reader, should you follow conventional wisdom or is there a better way to get more out of his works beyond "T...

Send us Fan Mail Meet your host, Larry D Curtis.  Student of J.R.R. Tolkien, veteran journalist and your guide through Middle-earth on the Tolkien Podcast. Visit or share: https://thetolkienpodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Support the show Contact: TheTolkienPodcast@gmail.com