Tolkien Reading Day normally takes place on 25th March, signifying the fall of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings.
However, this year the Tolkien Society are collaborating with the Prancing Pony Podcast and A Long-Expected Soundscape to co-run Tolkien Reading Day 2024. Our theme if ‘Service and Sacrifice‘ and we will be celebrating by hosting three reading sessions on Saturday 23rd March online on Zoom. If you are interested in taking part then can join in on the action by heading over to the Society’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and share your reactions using the hashtag #TolkienReadingDay2024.
You can book to either listen or read for any of our reading sessions here.
Guest Readers
We are excited to welcome guest readers for each of our reading sessions.
Reading Session 1: 9:00-10:00 GMT
We will be joined by Shaun Gunner who was first elected Chair of The Tolkien Society in 2013 and has overseen the Society’s expansion from 600 to 3,500 members, he is also a local councillor. We will also be joined by Dr Sara Brown who is Chair of the Language and Literature Faculty at Signum University, serves on the editorial board of Mallorn, and is co-presenter on podcasts such as The Tolkien Experience, The Rings of Power Wrap-Up, and The Prancing Pony.
Reading Session 2: 14:00-15:00 GMT
We look forward to welcoming Marcel Aubron-Bülles, an independent scholar and author of The Tolkienist blog; and Don Marshall, The Obscure Lord of the Rings Facts Guy, who is actually 3 racoons in a trenchcoat that started a Tolkien book club; one day they made a TikTok about an obscure fact and three years later it’s too late for them to back out now.
Reading Session 3: 20:00-21:00 GMT
Our last meeting of the day will include the founders of the The Prancing Pony Podcast Alan Sisto and Shawn Marchese. Alan Sisto is the writer and co-host of The Prancing Pony Podcast and Today’s Tolkien Times; he co-authored Why We Love Middle-earth with former PPP co-host Shawn E. Marchese (Mango Publishing, 2023). Shawn E. Marchese is the co-author of Why We Love Middle-earth and co-founder of The Prancing Pony Podcast, winner of the Tolkien Society award for Best Online Content in 2020 and 2022.
Education Resources
Are you thinking of running an event in your school, library, institution, with friends, or at home for Tolkien Reading Day? The Tolkien Society has created three lesson/interactive plans that you can download for free and use to run your events. Focused on our theme of ‘Service and Sacrifice’, they include a range of activities relating to art, literacy, and drama. Click each link to download the plan as a PDF.
Storytelling – Tales of Service and Sacrifice in Middle-earth
Art – Echoes of Middle-earth
Drama – Paths of Destiny: Exploring Moral Choices in Middle-earth
