This week may be Tolkien Week, but today is officially Hobbit Day! Hailing from the fictional world of Middle-earth, Hobbits have been described as relatives to man but coming in a much smaller package. And just because they aren't human (or, well — real), doesn't mean you can't learn something from their adventures in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Here, we take a look at a few Read more

J.R.R. Tolkien created a vast and complex world when he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The setting for these stories, a land called Middle-earth is rich with its own languages, myths, races, and cultures. With the guidance of The Origin's of Tolkien's Middle-Earth For Dummies ($16), we've noted five facts about this fictional world that came straight from one man's Read more

This month the American Library Association updated its list of frequently challenged books for the 2011 year, and one wildly popular novel is making its way up the rankings of this infamous list. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, which first appeared at number five of Top 10 Most Frequently Challenged Books in 2010, is now third on the list for attempts to remove its contents from Read more

Are you ready for your next trip to Middle Earth? Peter Jackson's highly anticipated adaptation of The Hobbit now has release dates and full, official titles. Yes, that's plural, because the film will be split into two parts. The first installment is called The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and will come out Dec. 14, 2012, and the follow-up is titled The Hobbit: There and Back Again, with a Read more