Warning: strpos(): Empty needle in /homepages/5/d845057890/htdocs/clickandbuilds/LionessatLarge/wp-content/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails-advanced/classes/Environment.php on line 47
Ongoing – Lioness at Large

Portfolio Category: Ongoing

100 Days of Summer Reading 2023

The prompts, books, and points: Prompts Books Points 1. Book with summer, beach, sun or sand in the title. Tove Jansson: The Summer Book 6 2. Book set in a location that you would like to go on vacation.     3. Book with a title that starts with a letter in the word B-E-A-C-H. […]

Read More

The Big Books and Series Binge Challenge

2023 seems to be my year of reading (or listening to) long books and bingeing on book series, so, when an online friend recently posted about her summer reading plans, she set me thinking about my own plans for the upcoming summer … only to end up deciding that I might just as well go […]

Read More

The Geography of Arda and Middle-earth

The Years of the Lamps and the Years of the Trees Source: Wikipedia Andrey Maximov: Illuin and Ormal — Ted Nasmith: Illuin Karen Wynn Fonstad: The Spring of Arda — from Almaren and the Great Lake in the Time of the Lamps to Middle-earth and Valinor in the Years of the Trees. Aman and Valinor […]

Read More

The Creatures of Middle-earth

Arda had a rich fauna, largely (though not exactly) coinciding with that of our world: it would be going overboard to try and list on this page every single type of animal mentioned in the legendarium even in passing; so the descriptions and commentary hereafter will be limited to those animals that significantly impact a […]

Read More

The Timeline of Arda and Middle-earth

While there is no substantial difficulty in fixing the time periods known as the Second, Third, and (beginnings of the) Fourth Age of Arda and Middle-earth, it is somewhat trickier to determine what exactly was “the First Age”, how long it lasted and which events it comprised.  For a discussion of the whys and wherefores […]

Read More

The Weaponry of Middle-earth

Middle-earth was not a peaceful place; from the First-Age warfare between Morgoth and the Elves, and their Edain allies, to the War of the Ring at the end of the Third Age, armed conflict formed the constant background of its people’s existence — and while there were also numerous minor wars and disputes, the overarching […]

Read More

Shiny Objects in Arda and Middle-earth

Arda and Middle-earth knew poverty, destruction, war, and hardship aplenty, but from their very own sources of light to precious jewels and metals, it also shone and sparkled with items of sheer magical brilliance, many of which were also of huge symbolic value.  These are some of them:   The Lights Amy O’Hanlon: Illuin and […]

Read More

The People and Peoples of Arda and Middle-earth

Note: This is primarily a write-up for my own purposes; I am not trying to emulate or even approximate the many outstanding Tolkien resources already available on- and offline.  As I prefer having all closely-related information available on one and the same page, I am keeping the information on Tolkien’s major (groups of) characters on […]

Read More

Wars and Battles of Arda and Middle-earth

Battlefields are blood-soaked places of unspeakable horror, replete with corpses, body parts, the roar, thunder and clash of arms, the cries and whimpers of the wounded and dying, shouts of rage, often the fumes of smoke and fire, and always the all-pervading stench of death.  And of course the legendarium’s universe far exceeds the various […]

Read More

Middle-earth

Introductory post HERE     J.R.R. Tolkien Author page: biographical sketch, bibliography, quotes, links (Auto-) Biographical Works Humphrey Carter: J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography Humphrey Carter: The Inklings Philip Zaleski: The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings                  Middle-earth The Books The Silmarillion (1977) The Hobbit (1937) – […]

Read More

Narrativium: Where the Falling Angel Meets the Rising Ape

The Discworld Novels (and Subseries) The Colour of Magic  (1983) – Rincewind #1 ♦ Review HERE The Light Fantastic  (1986) –  Rincewind #2 ♦ Review HERE Equal Rites (1987) – Witches #1 ♦ Review HERE Mort  (1987) – Death #1 ♦ Review HERE Sourcery  (1988) – Rincewind #3 ♦ Review HERE Wyrd Sisters  (1988) – Witches […]

Read More

The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael

The Novels The Prequel: A Rare Benedictine: The Advent of Brother Cadfael (published in September 1988, set in 1120) The first Chronicle: A Morbid Taste for Bones (published in August 1977, set in 1137) The second Chronicle: One Corpse Too Many (published in July 1979, set in August 1138) The third Chronicle: Monk’s Hood (published […]

Read More

Appointment With Agatha: The Agatha Christie Centenary Celebration

This is my master update post for a group project to read all of Agatha Christie’s full-length novels in the order of their publication, beginning in October 2020, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the publication of her first mystery novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which introduced the world to Hercule Poirot and […]

Read More

The (Mostly) Dead Writers Society Reading Projects: Birthday Challenge & Authors in Residence

(Dead) Author Birthdays This is a reading challenge associated with the (Mostly) Dead Writers Society on Goodreads; I decided to join it because it is as much an invitation to reconnect with the classics as it is one to walk down literary paths less traveled; so it ties in nicely with my own 2021 reading […]

Read More

Completed Series / Authors

It occurred to me that there is a third “series reading” master post I should keep, in addition to the First in Series and Ongoing Series projects that I created, as inspired by Moonlight Reader; namely, one to collect all my completed reading. So this project collects everything from books / series recently finished to […]

Read More

Ongoing Series

Following up on my First in Series post and, again inspired by Moonlight Reader, this reading list collects all of my ongoing series; i.e. all series that I have started and neither fully completed nor decided to discontinue.  Like my First in Series list, this is primarily for my own reference, so in order not […]

Read More

First in Series

Moonlight Reader created a post like this and I decided it might help me keeping track of my series reading plans as well, so here we are. These are all the still-to-be-started series that I’ve added to my TBR in the past two decades (ever since I started keeping track of my reading at all).  Obviously, […]

Read More

Women Writers: Reading List

I originally compiled this list for the 2018 Women Writers Bingo, but decided to undust it and continue using it for my Around the World in 80 Books, Mostly by Female Authors project. Basically this is an extract from my bookshelves (both TBR and read — “read” where I’ve already read other books by the same […]

Read More

The Detection Club

With my Detection Club Bingo card now blacked out, I’m going to track my reading here.  (Note: for purposes of completeness, this includes books by the below authors already read prior to the creation of this list.)  My priorities are going to be: Arthur Conan Doyle’s / Sherlock Holmes’s adventures, biographies, contemporaries and rivals, as […]

Read More

Around the World in 80 Books – Mostly by Female Authors

[World map created with Mapchart.net] The aim: To diversify my reading and read as many books as possible (not necessarily 80) set in, and by authors from, countries all over the world.  Female authors preferred.  If a book is set in a location other than that of the author’s nationality, it can apply to either […]

Read More