Happy Hobbit Day!
Let's read some Tolkien together
Happy Hobbit Day!
Today, September 22nd, is Hobbit Day, a holiday that fellow lovers of Middle-earth celebrate in honor of Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday!
My friends at Reading Revisited kindly asked if I would stop by their podcast to talk about Tolkien and I gladly accepted! You can listen to the episode here:
In honor of Hobbit Day, today at Jokien with Tolkien we’re officially beginning our Read Along of Tolkien’s Great Tales: won’t you join us?
We’re starting with The Children of Húrin, which focuses chiefly on the tale of Túrin Turambar, his sister Nienor, and their father Húrin.
In the preface to The Children of Húrin, Christopher Tolkien writes that many readers of his father’s works may have little or no knowledge of the Elder Days of Middle-earth and that his aim in publishing it as a standalone tale was so that “a window might be opened onto a scene and a story set in an unknown Middle-earth that are vivid and immediate, yet conceived as handed down from remote ages.”
He continues, referencing two times Túrin is mentioned in the text of The Lord of the Rings:
This book is thus primarily addressed to such readers as may perhaps recall that the hide of Shelob was so horrendously hard that it ‘could not be pierced by any strength of men, not though Elf or Dwarf should forge the steel or the hand of Beren or of Túrin wield it’, or that Elrond named Túrin to Frodo at Rivendell as one of ‘the mighty Elf-friends of old';1 but know no more of him.
(Speaking of Beren, next in our read-through schedule will come Beren and Lúthien, and we will round out the three Tales with The Fall of Gondolin.)
Whether you’re in that camp and have never heard more of Túrin than a few mentions in LOTR that you may or may not recall or whether you’ve already read the tale of Túrin in The Silmarillion/The Children of Húrin, you can set off with us on our adventure today!
How this first part of the Read Along will work:
What do I read?
If you don’t have a copy already, grab The Children of Húrin from your local bookstore (or a website like Bookshop.org that supports local bookstores), library, Amazon, a used book store or site, on Audible, etc.
How can I participate?
Read with us:
Today (or whenever your copy arrives), you can begin with the brief Preface and Introduction, which help set the stage for the tale. Or, if you’d rather just jump right in with chapter 1, go ahead! I won’t stop you!
I’ll be sending the full schedule for the The Children of Húrin portion of the Read Along this Thursday in our first official Read Along post. But as a preview, I’ll be sharing three ‘levels’ or ways you can participate:
‘Hobbit’ Level—just want the TL;DR version of the story? Read the abridged version in The Silmarillion.
‘Elf’ Level, I’ll provide suggested reading schedules for reading The Children of Húrin. It’ll be between 2–4 chapters a week, but they’re just suggestions! You’re welcome to go at your own speed
‘Wizard’ Level, I’ll provide even more good stuff from The History of Middle-earth, Unfinished Tales, articles, etc. that you can read when you finish the other levels
Hopefully that means that everyone will find just the right level of participation for them!
Share with us: each week, I will have discussion posts exclusively for paid subscribers where we can all share where we are at in the story, what we loved (with spoiler tags for those who maybe aren’t as far along as the rest of us!), and any questions we might have. You can also share in the Extended Edition section of the Jokien with Tolkien discord server (join here)! I’m looking forward to hearing from you all and how you experience this and the other tales!
It’s not too late to join us! The 22% off sale on paid subscriptions is good through TODAY, 9/22! If you’d like to embark with us, hit the button below for more details:
P.s. — can’t join the Extended Edition right now because of your financial situation but still greatly desire to participate in the discussions and get the whole experience? Shoot me an email at jrrjokien@jrrjokien.com!
For everyone who is already planning on participating, I’d love to hear from you!
1. Have you already read The Children of Húrin, or is this your first time? (I’d like to get a sense for if this is new for most of us or if we’ve got mainly a crew of folks who are returning to the tale)
2. Tell me a little about yourself! Why are you participating, are you a new or longtime subscriber, what are you hoping to get out of this read along, etc.
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The full quote from Elrond: “But it [the Ring] is a heavy burden. So heavy that none could lay it on another. I do not lay it on you [Frodo]. But if you take it freely, I will say that your choice is right; and though all the mighty Elf-friends of old, Hador, and Húrin, and Túrin, and Beren himself were assembled together, your seat should be among them.”
Hello from Stockholm! I'm very excited to be part of the group.
1. Have you already read The Children of Húrin, or is this your first time? First time, I don't know if I'd even heard of it before I found the post announcing the read along.
2. Tell me a little about yourself! Why are you participating, are you a new or longtime subscriber, what are you hoping to get out of this read along, etc.
I've been a fan ever since I saw Peter Jackson's LotR trilogy as a kid, but even though I was a voracious reader, I never attempted the books. I dealt with Tolkien's scholarly legacy more in college, when I learned Old English. I think I still have his prose translation of Beowulf somewhere. This past summer, I decided it's finally time to tackle the trilogy, which I'm doing in 2026. Just finished The Hobbit this weekend :)
As for what I want to get out of this, I'd just like to have some people to talk to. I've done some online book clubs before and enjoyed them a lot :)
Hello from California! I am a long time subscriber and have read The Hobbit and LOTR but have not ventured into Tolkien's other works. I figure this is a good time to change that and am excited to join you all with the readings!!