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Just how popular is 'The Lord of the Rings', anyway?
HuanCry from England wrote to the project director of Harper Collins to find out.... "Here is HarperCollins UK response to my query Re: what are the true total sales figures of LotR ....following my irritation at the outdated figures of ' 50million copies in 25 languages ' ALWAYS being used in newspaper/magazine articles over last 10 YEARS or so!" "Thank you for your enquiry. It is difficult to ascertain exact sales, not least because the book is sold in single- and three-volume editions across the world. A figure of 50 million copies and 25 languages was researched and declared for the Tolkien Centenary in 1992, and the press always hark back to this. Patrick Curry conservatively updated the figures for his book ("Defending Middle-earth",) but we think that we're well on the way to 100 MILLION COPIES WORLDWIDE ACROSS 40-50 LANGUAGES. We hope to have more accurate figures soon, as we are working on this question for New Line Cinema, although much of it has to remain educated guesswork. I suspect that Bookworm's claim (BBC programme aired in 1997) of 5 million per year rather exaggerates the truth about "The Lord of the Rings," although if you included The Hobbit and the other Tolkien books it probably wouldn't be far out." Thanks to David Brawn at Harper Collins, and HuanCry!
Cast News: Ian McKellen's B-Day!
  Today, May 25th, is Ian McKellen's (Gandalf) Birthday! Ian was born Ian Murray McKellen on 25 May 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, England. That makes him 61 today! Have a good one Ian!
Cast Watch: Viggo, Brad and Kevin on TV
Barliman's Chatroom to Host Xanth Author Piers Anthony! Fantasy and science fiction novelist Piers Anthony will be our honored guest for a live chat at Barliman's on Sunday, June 4th, at 6:00 EDT [-5 hours GMT]. Check out his website Hi Piers for a bibliography, newsletter, Xanth character database, and more.
Special Report: 'Tolkien Weekend' Report Andy checked in with this great little report about the 'Tolkien Weekend' that went down on the 13th and 14th of May. [More]
New Xoanon Rant! Yes, I know it's been a while, but things have finally started to calm down and I've managed to get some writing done! Here it is! 'Farewell to Lorien'! [More]
TheOneRing.net Sponsorships: May Update At the moment, TheOneRing.net is sponsoring two causes with the income from those little ad banners you see at the top of most of our pages...[full report]
Shadowfax and other animals. Tehanu brings us this report on a recent article in the Dominion newspaper concerning the animal cruelity allegations. [more]
Cast Watch: Dourif on Cinemax
Ever wondered what set spying's really like? I asked one of our most persistent set-watchers, the Hutt Hobbit, and got this report from his friend Salome. Shows that there's a lot of patience, persistence, and immunity to cold required, as well as a lot of hoping and dreaming! [More]
SFX Talks to Christopher Lee
'I've only just back from two months in New Zealand filming Lord of the Rings,' says Christopher Lee matter of factly, his sonorous tones still strident as always. 'It's just going to be...I'm trying to think of the right word - without making sound like the usual fashionable superlative. I think it will create film history. I think it's going to have the biggest impact, on screen, of anything of the last 40 or 50 years.' And he says the teaser trailer s nothing compared to the full impact of the movie. 'I don't know what you'd call it, it's not exactly a trailer. It doesn't actually show you anything in great detail, in terms of people and what they look like and what they say.'   Click on each image to view in our scrapbook
Q and A with Fantasy Author Terry Brooks Gandalf works his magic! Check out what Brooks had to say about writing, Tolkien, and the Lord of the Rings. [MORE]
Xtem Talks LOTR Filming!
Tolkien Cartoon Contest
From: John Cook I'm running a week long Lord of the Rings cartoon punchline contest parodying that Weathertop scene in the trailer where the four hobbits confront the Ringwraiths. It features caricatures of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin. The reader has to come up with a punchline from either Frodo or the Ringwraith (or both)! At the end of the week, the funniest punchline is voted on by readers. If you think you can come up with a funny punchline or would like to read everyone else's funniest entries, browse on over here. 
Two New Books Available Online The good folks at Hughton Mifflin have chimed in with news on a few new books available at Amazon.com [More]
Cast Watch: Astin on TMN
The Lighter Side of Tolkien
Recently I posted a bit about Leonard Nimoy singing a hobbitish kind of song called The Ballad of Bilbo. Thanks for all of you who sent in a response, and for those of you curious about hearing this little ditty or SEEING it (!) you can link to The Tolkien Collector to check it out. Thanks to Matt for the tip! Please send me your outlandish Tolkien links! Enjoy. Took :)
This Week's Ebay Items More exciting than wine cooler jell-o! [More]
Barliman's Retooling TheOneRing.net's chatroom Barliman's has a new logo and some exciting updates. Check out our spiffy new photo gallery and recent changes to our Map of Regulars. Come and join the throng right here! Thanks to Nob, Pipesmoke, Calisuri and Corvar.
Media Watch: The NZ Listener
 Click on the image to view the full article
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The latest issue of SFX Magazine (June #65) has a small interview with 
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The NZ Listener has scored themselves an interview with our very own