Tolkien Gleanings #81.

* A new Inklings Variety Hour podcast interview, “Michael Drout: The Liberal Arts and Beowulf”. Starts at 6:40 minutes.

* New on YouTube, “Charles Coulombe on Kingship and Tolkien”… “Daniel Cote Davies speaks to Charles Coulombe, the American Catholic author and historian, on the topic of kingship, as well as J.R.R. Tolkien’s own interpretation of the topic.”

* Kent State University Press now has a page and a date for the forthcoming book Pity, Power, and Tolkien’s Ring… “Thomas P. Hillman gets to the heart of the tension between pity and the desire for power” in LoTR. The $40 book is currently due December 2023.

* New on John Garth’s site, an article on “The mood music of G.B. Smith, T.C.B.S.”.

* New on Archive.org, to borrow, The Ring Goes Ever On: Proceedings of the Tolkien 2005 Conference (2008). The conference was held in Birmingham in 2005. Archive.org only has “Volume One”, although even that is a table-trembling 434 pages. Appears to be well out-of-print, with only one paper copy on Amazon (used at £85).

* And finally, a rare Twitter-trawl reveals… the usual utter piffle. But also something of the latest Amon Hen #301, the publication from the Tolkien Society. It has a ‘centrefold’, no less. In the form of a 1960s-style Frodo Baggins cut-out paper-doll. Yes, really, in a two-page colour spread. I’ll spare you the picture.