Hello everyone!
Having archive-binged nearly the whole of the books section on this forum, I have decided to join this site. I think it's arguably the best of Tolkien forums, dead or alive (or undead) and it seems from all you lot say that there are precious few of those on the net anymore! I wish I could have experienced and engaged in this fandom at its apex - browsing all the old stuff does bring a certain measure of regret - but I am definitely too young to have done any of that.
I am in secondary school, only going into Year 9 in September. I live in bright, sunny England, in the gorgeous little city of Oxford. I first read The Hobbit and LOTR nearly three years ago when I was eleven. Since then the Appendices have fallen out of my copy of
Return of the King (my sister has now bound them separately
), I have read The Silm and UT, and would have liked to have devoured HoMe too, if I could afford them, what with their eye-watering £120 price tag. I've recently bagged
The Book of Lost Tales Part 1, though.
My interests and hobbies include writing and drawing/painting (not that I'm all that good at either
), quizzing, films, languages, spending time with my friends and, of course, analysis and discussion of Tolkien's work (though I'm definitely not keen on anything too scholarly, rigid and absolute.) I love to fill in the gaps as well as see others' interpretation of things. After all, I think its the applicability (and often even ambiguity) of JRRT's work that makes it what is.
That's enough from me now.