I've had this idea rolling around in my head for a while now, and with the Hobbit going full steam ahead and the LotR sub-forums picking up some traffic, I thought today is the day!

Right now I'm envisioning a really informal format; maybe a thread per book (either FotR, TTT, and RotK, or going by the actual 'books', in which case there would be six threads in all. IIRC, Tolkien originally meant it to be published as one volume, divided into 6 books.) There'd be no organized discussion and no mandatory attendance-- just an open invitation to post about your favourite parts, think deep thoughts about characterization, post book-based fanart, think shallow thoughts about how generally awesome everyone is, point out your favourite quotes, fangirl over Eomer, (or is that just me and Ana? ) or do whatever you want!

When I was young and stupid and the idea first popped up I thought we could do a chapter every week. Then I realized it'd take so long, we might NEVER get done, what with the apocalypse and all.

So I'm open to suggestions on how many chapters a day. There are 22 chapters in the Fellowship of the Ring (12 in Book I, 10 in Book II); 21 in The Two Towers (11 in Book III, 10 in Book IV); and 19 in the Return of the King (10 in Book V, and 9 in Book VI.) That's a grand total of 62 chapters. Also, when's a good start date? Provided there's enough interest. When are all you university students done?

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~Set by Lembas~If we grow up we're all going to be famous.

Great idea. I had planned on re-reading the books over summer. When I waved the idea some time ago in another thread there seemed to be at least a couple of people interested too so I'm sure we can get a decent group together.

Time
For me it would fit nicely if we started in June or later.

Speed
I dunno.. We could set up a general thread for FotR, TTT, and RotK where people could talk about anything in the books whenever they felt like it, and we could have a more structured chapter-by-chapter discussion.
For me it would work the best if we had... say a deadline every two weeks where someone posted a couple of questions for those past 4-5 chapters in the reading plan.
Personally, I like to discuss the little things I notice in the books because we have so many threads for the general stuff..

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Agreed. I don't think having just one thread per book (even the actual book) would be too helpful, since things could just be so general. Though having a place where people can just say "I love Fatty!" is good.

I know I was also turning this over in my mind, and one thing I thought would be good would be to break it up according to location and stuff. So you could have one thread for chapters when they're in the Shire, another thread for the Old Forest/ the wild/ Rivendell/ traveling/ Lorien/etc. That would help narrow discussion down, but also make it easier for people to find what they want to talk about.

As for how many chapters in how much time..I dunno. Everyone reads at a very different pace, and LotR is hard to get through sometimes. I feel like it could be better if we just had the thread(s) set up, so people could post when they get there.

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going on a journey through my old claims

Yeah, I was thinking along those lines too.. it's difficult to set deadlines for chapters because it's almost impossible for people to commit to read and discuss chapters on cue - I know I couldn't do it because of work and vacation and what have you.

On the other hand, I think it's important that we try - at least try - to set up some kind of structured read and discussion. Otherwise, people would never be on the same page so to say. I might be dying to get peoples' opinion on something regarding the preparation for Bilbo's party and other people might already have gotten the hobbits to Tom Bombadil. For the little detalis-discussion to work out we need to have a couple of people reading the same chapters within a reasonable amount of time... though, that might not be possible at all...

Perhaps we should drag some more people over here... Also.. we had a reading group a long time ago. I know it died because it was too structured I think but for while it lived.. it was interesting to follow.

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Oh, good point about a thread per book being too general. I think Nurr's idea of a thread 'per location' sounds like a good plan; it's broad enough so we don't have a gazillion threads to look at, but narrow enough to easily find what you're looking for, and to know where we are in the book.

Since the whole book is like one long journey, we could take it sort of from rest-stop to rest-stop.

~The Shire to Tom Bombadil
~Tom Bombadil to Rivendell
~Rivendell to Lothlorien
~Lothlorien to the end of FotR

~Parth Galen to Meduseld
~Meduseld to Isengard
~Emyn Muil (Frodo and Sam) to Henneth Annun
~Henneth Annun to Cirith Ungol

~Minas Tirith to Pelennor Fields
~Pelennor Fields to the Black Gate
~Cirith Ungol to the Field of Cormallen
~The Field of Cormallen to the Grey Havens.

Or, we could make it REALLY simple and just say "Every 4 or 5 chapters we start a new thread."

Late May/June is probably the best starting date. Any university students will be done, high schoolers will be almost done, but it still gives us plenty of time to finish.

Haha...questions. I love that idea, as long as I don't have to come up withanyall of them. I wonder if there's any study guides to LotR. it'd be interesting to read through and see what the professionals want us to talk about.

It will be really hard to get everyone reading the same thing at around the same time. Maybe we could set a weekly kind of deadline? Like, at the end of the first week try to be at...A Shortcut to Mushrooms? That's 4 chapters. I know we don't want to be too ambitious, but I think if we take it too slowly our enthusiasm might die off a bit.

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~Set by Lembas~If we grow up we're all going to be famous.

Count me in

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Looks like a good layout and I do think we should try to be structured in the reading even though not everone will be able to follow that structure.. at least trying does give .. well some structure!
But of course it depends on how many people will actually be joining. I know Larael and JF mentioned that they'd be interested in a reading group... and a couple of others. I'll go poke them about it sometime and then we should probably extend PM-pokesinvites to anyone who has ever shown the slightest interest in reading the books over the summer to see if they're game.

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I'd totally be up for this if I weren't already reading them. I'm almost done with Two Towers, which means I'll probably be almost done with Return of the King before you guys even start
I'll see how much I have to do and how many other books I decide to read this summer though - I might join you after all

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by Lembas

University students (in the UK at least) should be finished by mid-June. My last exam is on the 26th May and then I have no uni until mid-September.

Yep I'm up for this. I was already planning on re-reading LotR and the Hobbit this summer and I am going to finally finish reading the Silmarillion this summer. I AM!

As for my reading speed... I will probably be able to finish LotR in a week... Maybe less if I don't have much to do over the weekend.. See my blog (link on my profile) to get an idea of my reading crazies

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All by Bellatrix
Married Nymphadora Tonks 29/6/13

Yay! Welcome Aerlinn, Hravan, and maybe Ana. I think the consensus so far is to start early to mid June, so we have a month to wait.

Feel free to advertise this around the forum; the more the merrier!

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~Set by Lembas~If we grow up we're all going to be famous.

I would love to participate in this, but my leisure reading rate is currently glacial (as in, it's taken me maybe six weeks to get through half of The Hobbit. ) and unlikely to improve even over the summer. But maybe I'll jump in with you if I find some time!

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Oh, me, me! Defiantly count me in. I would love to discuss LOTR with others, and I'm a pretty fast reader, even more so when I'm reading something I'm addicted to. I'll contribute as many ideas as I can as well. Heck, I'll even use sticky notes.

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Just became a college freshman; be on sparingly

Perhaps we should start the warm up for this... I mean it's June today and many people are already out for summer. I think I'm gonna start re-reading the books soon so I figured we could put up a general thread now and hopefully that would generate some attention and interest..

What do you guys say? Minuialwen??

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I really want to do a reread too! I sort of started reading RotK from the Cirith Ungol chapter, but I can start at the beginning however, I'll probably only come in from time to time, because I'll be gone for a bit this summer.

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thanks for the Hobbit Team banner, Lembas!

OKAY. So, I'm writing the SAT on Saturday, so I'll be MIA for the rest of this week (much like the past month or so ) but I am totally ready to get this thing started, so let's start next week sometime. I'll be back Sunday/Monday and we can figure a couple things out, like threads and pacing and discussion and hopefully have a kick off by Wednesday. *is excite*

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~Set by Lembas~If we grow up we're all going to be famous.