(no subject)

[wellinghall]

reading:
- Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best: The Blandings Short Stories (Penguin Modern Classics)
- Imperial Blandings: "Pigs Have Wings", "Full Moon", "Service with a Smile"
- The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary
- The Lord of the Rings 1954 - 2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E Blackwelder
- PJS support group emails.

watching:
- the last three episodes of Blackadder the Third
- Water like Chocolate, a Mexican film that came free with a weekend paper.

listening to:
- Radio 4 as background
- in a moment, a compliation tape, "Top Gear".

doing:
- having the plumber round, to tell us that he needs to order a new part for the shower, and will be round again in a few days to install it (I didn't have a shower in the house for the first 25 years of my life, and never missed it; but it's a necessity now!)
- having the builder round, to look at re-vamping our loft / study; we're looking forward to having it done, but not the disruption while it is done
- sorting out clothes, with piles for charity shop, storage, and current wardrobe / drawers
- and when I get round to it, more on Best of Amon Hen (coming soon to a bookshop near you! - well, soon-ish, anyway).

Comments

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

I'd appreciate your opinion of
- The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary
- The Lord of the Rings 1954 - 2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E Blackwelder

As I'm interested in both and getting copies. Incidentally did you get the Polish special collection Aiglos last summer, there's a couple of really good papers in there (the one on Good is very interetsing).

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Ring of Words is interesting - it adds markedly to my knowledge of what Tolkien's work on the OED would have involved - how we would have spent his days, and so on. It is a little lightweight, disappointingly - prepared a little more for the general audience than the true Tolkien afficionado.

Scholarship is proving to be interesting (I'm only about 40% of the way through it so far). A mixed bag - Shippey is always worth reading, Christina writes well, Jane Chance knows her stuff (although an American writing on the British class system usually produces slightly odd results). Some of the authors I find not so readable - John Rateliff for one, although I'm still looking forward to his Hello Mr Baggins, promised afresh for this September.

Aiglos, yes I got it, but I don't think I ever actually read it! It will come off the shelf and onto the reading pile soon.