Tolkien Gleanings #325
* From the Philology degree of a Moscow University, the new undergraduate dissertation “Real and Fictional Geography in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Minor Works” (2025). Not online, but there is an abstract in English…
“The second chapter explores the connections between real geography and fictional geography, which also shows the importance of researching the writer’s geography, since the results of the analysis lead to new and more complete interpretations of the text.”
* Whatever one may think of the various screen and videogame adaptations of Tolkien, one can’t fault the musicians and concept designers/illustrators who worked on them. From an Irish undergraduate degree in Design for Film (Production), a new dissertation looks at the latter in “Architects of Arda: The Design of the Elvish Realms in The Rings of Power” (2025). Has no copyright-censorship of the images, thankfully. Freely available online, and one can also find more dissertations of a similar nature from recent years.
* From Stockholm University in Sweden, the new undergraduate dissertation
“The Lord of the Rings: The Verisimilitude and Immersive Depth of Tolkien’s Middle-earth” (2025). Not online, but with an English abstract.
* The latest July 2025 issue of the open-access SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature reviews Supernatural Speakers in Old English Verse (2023), a book on…
“supernatural speech and speakers in Old English poetry. Coker’s monograph will be of huge interest to the field, not only for its extended treatment of an enthralling theme but for the remarkable insights that it generates along the way.”
* New from Cambridge University Press, what appears to be an introductory book in their Cambridge Elements series, Natural and Supernatural in Early Medieval England (2025). Apparently only 78 pages long despite its price, so… perhaps more of a pocket-book for students with deep pockets?
* I hear that the new book Fantasy: A Short History (April 2025), has a long chapter “on Tolkien and Wagner”. The book was issued in the Bloomsbury ‘Short Histories’ series, yet apparently it is neither short (“296 pages” says Amazon) nor a popular read (“this is Adam Roberts in professorial mode. He doesn’t make it too easy for the reader” says one reviewer). As such, Gleanings readers may be more interested in the Tolkien chapter than otherwise.
* And finally, I spotted another ‘unknown quantity’ new book and this one had a discouraging AI-quickie cover image. But the size of this just-released book, A Culinary Journey Through Middle-earth: A Fantasy-Inspired Cookbook of Hobbit Meals, Elvish Delights & Dwarvish Feasts, intrigued me. 311 pages just for some recipes? Surely there must be more to it? So I had the ‘free sample’ Amazon supplies for Kindle ebooks, and it does appear to be a legitimate book from a LoTR-loving foodie who evidently also knows how to write. The sample offers short mini-essays on the different approaches to food among the different races of Middle-earth. Worth a look, it seems, if food/cooking is your thing. Though I can’t vouch for the final edibility on the plate!