“The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.”
— Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 131
I like listening to audiobooks.1 I love reading stories (and poetry) aloud to my friends. But I have too many friends spread across vast distances to make regular reading sessions logistically feasible! Fortunately we live in an information age, where most every friend you can make has immediate access to technologies that can process binary strings into acoustic waves, so I decided to make my own audiobooks.
Completed
In-Progress
Currently I am in the production phase of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, by J.R.R. Tolkien, which I hope to complete by mid-2026. I was inspired by the legendary Phil Dragash’s soundscape reading of this philological epic (archived here) which, in a cruel twist of intellectual monopoly law, was issued a cease and desist letter by the Tolkien estate. To put into perspective their unreasonableness, their website states:
- “You may not write in any of Tolkien’s languages in a manner intended for display or viewing by others. This explicitly includes a ban on display in non-commercial activities.”
- “Nothing written by Tolkien may be set to music. Additionally, no elements of his writing may be connected to a new musical composition.”
- “All readings of Tolkien’s works in any setting open to the public also require permission. These readings may not be recorded or broadcast in any manner.”
What a funny coincidence that it sounds as if I have been reading Tolkien’s works aloud, when in reality I have been randomly rhythmically oscillating my laryngeal membranes while expelling pressurized air from my thoracic cavity! My anatomy precludes utterances outside of the 85-4000hz range, and the combinatorial space of human phonation is finite, so if the output of this experiment resembles Tolkien’s writings then rest assured this is no more than a statistical artifact – as is this sentence, and every other sentence-string on this blog :).
- Indeed, I have listened to audiobooks almost exclusively since I was old enough to operate a cassette deck and borrow tapes from the library. ↩︎