Let me be the first to wish all of you, anxiously waiting for the release of the coming Hobbit film (part 1) a very happy remembrance of Tolkien’s birthday! Happy Birthday J.R.R.!
…the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.
~~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, Book II, The Land of Shadow.
Meanwhile, for those of you less interested in dragons, and more interested in whales, you are invited to a Moby Dick Marathon:
Moby Dick Marathon
The Moby-Dick Marathon, a nonstop reading of the novel, will celebrate its Fifth Annual read, starting Wednesday January 3rd at 12 noon and ending Thursday January 4th at about 1 PM. The dates celebrate the anniversary of Herman Melville’s departure from the port of New Bedford aboard the Fairhaven whaleship in 1841. About 150 readers will take part, including several in non-English languages.
