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33 | Finland
Fantasy, romance and crime (but mostly fantasy)
I read in 🇬🇧 🇫🇮 and a little in 🇨🇵 🇸🇪

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Mainos/vaikuttajapassi saatu 💗

Eilen oli toka pvä messuilla ja päivä kului tehden kirjalöytöjä ja korvisostoksia sekä nähden ystäviä 💕 ohjelmia tuli kuunneltua vaan pari, mutta niille on aikaa enemmän la ja su 🤩

Kirjamessut on kyllä ihmisen parasta aikaa 🥹🩷

#kirjamessut #helsinginkirjamessut #kirjagramsuomi #kirjagram @helsinginkirjamessut @messukeskus

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Mainos/ liput saatu yhteistyönä @oulunkirjamessut
Keitä kirjasomettajia seuraatte? Tässä mää seuraan @tuuliareads ia Oulun kirjamessuilla.

(Videon idea saatu muualta mutta en nyt muista keneltä)

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“‘Today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today!’
‘Hurray! Hurray! Many Happy Returns!’ they shouted, and they hammered joyously on the tables. Bilbo was doing splendidly. This was the sort of stuff they liked: short and obvious.”
—The Fellowship of the Ring

Many happy returns to our illustrious Masters Bilbo and Frodo Baggins - may the hair on their feet never fall out! - a happiest of hobbit days, and happy fall & blessed Mabon to all! 🍂

We had a hobbit meal last night (a small tribute, as I’m feeling under the weather), but we’re still trying to schedule our annual hobbit party because we all have kids/are caretakers and September is full of family birthdays, so trying to find time is proving difficult. But today after we sang hobbit drinking songs on our way to drop off Young Jedi, Halfling and I took our morning walk to visit the cows, picked some wildflowers, and had leftover hobbit food (and tea, of course) for lunch, so it’s been a quite slow, lovely day overall.

I wanted to make a special note of the beautiful print of the party tree my dear friend (and fellow Ring-bearer in many other years) @acornerturned sent me - I unfortunately could not capture the photo I had in my head, but hopefully you can appreciate the beauty of the art nonetheless.

If you could choose to celebrate hobbit day with no worries for the outside world or pesky real-life obligations, what would you do?

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#alongexpectedhobbitday hosted by @misskieranjane & @thelastkindlyhome ❦ 22nd #tolkientuesday ‘The party tree’ - Happy Hobbit Day and many happy returns to Masters Bilbo and Frodo Baggins! How will you be celebrating?

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How to properly toast a book that holds such a special place in so many hearts? How to capture the charm, the scope, the life lessons, the deeds both grand and humble?⁣
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How to explain its success, its staying power, its fiercely devoted and ever-growing fan base?⁣⁣ How to explain our adoration, our passion, our obsession for this unlikely and ever reluctant hero, his quirky and lovable band of dwarves, and their often grumpy guide?⁣⁣
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We could say it launched a legacy unlike anything, arguably, there ever has been or will be. We could say it irrevocably changed the face of fantasy. We could say it set the bar so high, established so many precedents and tropes and themes and details as cannon that every fantasy writer, whether wittingly or no, pulls from Tolkien.⁣⁣
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But I think, perhaps, its enduring influence is due to this: it’s a tale about an ordinary person tested against extraordinary circumstances wielding little more than his wits, compassion, and good common sense. We need more tales like that.⁣⁣
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Happy book birthday to The Hobbit, and Many Happy Returns.⁣⁣

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My Middle-earth meet-cute is quite simple: I fell for Smaug. Specifically, the illustration by the Professor himself. (In my defense, Tolkien’s famous print makes him look quite cuddly, I just wanted to pat his head.) I’d first met Middle-earth through a book in our home library of stills from the 1977 Rankin & Bass film The Hobbit, but it was when I discovered Tolkien’s illustration of Smaug the Magnificent that my obsession truly began (and also my obsession with dragons 😉)

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#alongexpectedhobbitday hosted by @misskieranjane & @thelastkindlyhome ❦ 21st #middleearthmonday
‘Food & cheer & song’ - Happy book birthday to The Hobbit! Share your Middle-earth meet-cute - who or what introduced you to Tolkien?

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“Would that there were kings in Gondor, as there were once upon a time, they say! For it is said in old lore: ‘The hands of the king are the hands of a healer.’ And so the rightful king could ever be known.”
—The Return of the King

It feels fitting that the man who saw the very worst of men would write Aragorn. Faramir. Boromir. Samwise. Frodo. Éomer. Théoden. Merry and Pippin. Thorin. The man who sat in the trenches and watched men who could have been friends blow fellow humans to bits, who saw the boys of his childhood fall to the power plays of powerful men, who knew firsthand the evils of arrogance and self-proclaimed superiority.

Can you imagine what this world would look like if those lines rang true? If men were caretakers, if they cried openly and hugged unashamedly and stepped into positions of power not to prop up their own fragile egos, but out of a genuine desire to be of service. Aragorn doesn’t take the crown because he wants the power; indeed, he spends much of the trilogy refusing it. But he recognizes the privilege he has, in his lineage, his lived experience, in the expectations of his people, and so he takes up the mantle not to satisfy some part of himself needing external validation or adoration, but because he is needed.

Boromir, beautiful Boromir, struggles with the lure of a seemingly simple solution to his people’s problems and the poisonous temptation of the Ring, and recognizes his mistake. Faramir (book Faramir, and don’t even get me started there) looks temptation in the face and stands aside - and does the right thing not for recognition or glory, but simply because it’s what’s right.⁣ Samwise realizes if he does not step in and continue Frodo’s quest, all will be lost. He’s terrified, but he takes the Ring and prepares to go on.

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Something that struck me as I was thinking this over: Tolkien’s men are all driven by love. Aragorn and Théoden, Boromir and Faramir, Éomer and Thorin, a love for their people. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, a love for each other and the Shire.

And lest you think I’ve forgotten Éowyn and Galadriel, Arwen and Lúthien, (yes, I did start with our Tolkien men, because the quote is about kings, and

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Mathom (noun): a trinket or any item hobbits had no particular use for but were unwilling to discard; constructed by Tolkien from obsolete Old English word meaning ‘treasure, precious thing’

For the longest time, I used to look at my brother and sister-in-law’s house and feel less than. Her style is the epitome of coastal minimalism - white paint everywhere, neutral tones, more modern lines, pared down, open, airy. I tried for years to emulate it and beat myself up when my house felt like a mixed-up mess.

It took me years to realize it’s simply not my style, and that’s okay. Embracing the cozy cottagecore earthwitch granny aesthetic has been the best thing for both my house and myself, it’s where my heart feels at home. I love dark wood and pieced quilts and woven baskets and vintage fashion, rich earth tones and jeweled greens and filigreed frames. And mathoms - my space has always been filled with mathoms. Knick-knacks, as my nana used to call them, dragons and little figurines and dried flowers, plants and trinkets from the old people I worked with at the nursing home, treasures from loved ones lost and friends from times past. Much of it has little practical use but to make me smile, to bring beauty and make my space feel like mine - but that has value too. The hobbits would undoubtedly understand.

What makes your home feel uniquely yours?

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#alongexpectedhobbitday hosted by @misskieranjane & @thelastkindlyhome ❦ 14th #middleearthmonday ‘It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life ’ - share your mathoms and hobbit habits that bring you joy

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I often wonder if Tolkien ever conceived of the effect his stories would have on the world. Did he have any notion he’d be a giant who forever changed the landscape of fantasy? (Of literature, really.) Did he realize his words would resonate with generation after generation, the timeless lessons offering inspiration and comfort in situations from the darkest depths of a struggling soul to the darkest days of human history?

Maybe he did. Or maybe he just wrote as he saw, and as he experienced. His stories explore universal themes - friendship, love, loyalty, betrayal, the triumph of good and beauty, of compassion and hope over darkness.

And that, perhaps, is his greatest strength, and why his tales - and indeed, all the best fantasy stories - ring so true. Tolkien wrote fantasy, but he understood reality - I’d argue better than many. He understood people. Their hopes, their fears, their struggles, and within the context of this wondrous world he created, he wrote characters whose journeys and demons speak to something inside of us. Fairy stories, after all, endure because they reveal very real, very human truths.

Tolkien’s hand indeed touched gold. And through him, the world will forever gleam a bit brighter.

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#alongexpectedhobbitday hosted by @misskieranjane & @thelastkindlyhome ❦ 11th #fellowshipfriday ‘The land of fairy-stories’ - on the power of fantasy and the Professor’s legacy

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Yes, fantasy is escapist. Tolkien himself acknowledged this - and defended it.

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Because he understood what critics of the genre like to miss.

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The power of good fantasy lies not in its escape from reality, but its reflection.

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Fairy stories, after all, endure because they reveal very real, very human truths.

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The best fantasy - fantastic beasts and magic and all - teaches us not how to exist in other realms, but how to better exist in our own.

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“The land of fairy-story is wide and deep and high, and is filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an every-present peril; both sorrow and joy as sharp as swords. In that land a man may (perhaps) count himself

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Before I truly understood Tolkien, I used to think hope was fragile. The thing with feathers - brave, but easily broken.

Tolkien taught me hope is gritty. Messy. Hope is the silver shards of a broken sword. The gentle compassion of a neglected son. Hope is a wizard’s trust in two halflings who are wholly unprepared for the journey ahead but whose love for each other and their home sees them through.

Tolkien’s hope is the kind that refuses to cower. The kind that topples empires. Tolkien’s hope requires more than mere hoping: it’s an action, a verb, a relentless belief in better.

Hope is hard. But the alternative…

‘What are we holding on to, Sam?’
‘That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.’

I’ll always fight for that ⚔️ What say you?

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#alongexpectedhobbitday hosted by @misskieranjane & @thelastkindlyhome ❦ 7th #middleearthmonday
‘May it be a light for you when all other lights go out’ - the passages that bring us hope

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‘There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.’
—Thorin Oakenshield

If only Tolkien knew how his words would affect future generations… or perhaps he did. I’m crying as I write this, because Tolkien’s words cut so deeply in light of everything that’s happening. It would indeed be a merrier world. Let us make it so.

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I’ve always felt the world would be a better place if more people understood Gildor’s last line here.

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Another passage that speaks to the responsibility we should all feel to be stewards of this miraculous planet and future generations.

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For a long time, the only fellow Tolkien friends I had were my brother and our childhood buddy. We were fantasy/sci-fi nerds, lovers of dragons and epic quests and sweeping battles fought across the stars; they were the ones who understood that side of me like no one else. It wasn’t until I started sharing my love for Middle-earth here that I realized just how large the Tolkien community was, linked from continent to continent by our love for the Professor’s stories. It was

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Most esteemed company, I am Miss Kieran Jane, daughter of Roul Oakleaf, son of Marigold and Walt of Lyme-by-the-Sea, and Lily Pineburrow, daughter of Marian and Waldo of Oldtowne. I have seen four decades of this world and lived many more through the magic of ink and paper, and have always felt myself an old soul more at home with the pace of the trees and the sea than today’s modern society.

In my younger years, I studied classical music & dance and have twirled across many a stage to the strains of Tchaikovsky. When I embarked on my first unaccompanied adventure, I studied classical violin with Masters Stegeman & Harth and the mysteries of the mind with Lady Dona in the City of Bridges, and I have worked at houses of healing in the lands of the Lone Star and the Grand Canyon before the sea called me back to the place of my birth. It was in forests not far from the sea that I found the man who holds my heart. We reside in our own little corner of the Shire in New England where I am a weaver of words and a tender of blooms & young minds, including my own two little hobbits.

It is my honour to be your Ring-bearer alongside @thelastkindlyhome in this sixth year of our September celebrations, and I look forward to the pleasure of your most excellent company as our adventure unfolds.

P.S. Please enjoy some of my fave Middle-earth fun (and today’s hobbitcore attire) to kick off our celebrations ;)

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#alongexpectedhobbitday hosted by @misskieranjane & @thelastkindlyhome ❦ 4th #fellowshipfriday - Well met - Introduce yourself as if arriving for the Council of Elrond

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❦ Announcing our sixth annual #alongexpectedhobbitday ❦

Our dear Bagginses and Boffins, and our dear Tooks and Brandybucks, and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers, Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses, and Proudfoots. We have called you all together for a Purpose.⁣
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The birthday shared by our beloved Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Frodo will soon be upon us. In preparation for this momentous occasion, we invite you to join us in our sixth annual celebration of all things hobbit and Middle-earth.

This year’s prompts center around the power of community, hope, & joy: JRR Tolkien stood staunchly and publicly against Nazism and apartheid in South Africa, and his stories speak to how the peoples of his world put aside old enmities and divisions and worked together to defeat evil. He may have originally imagined his world within a Eurocentric mythological history, but he was deeply dismayed to understand the exclusionary impact of this and took steps to address it in later writings. Tolkien’s life and work were dedicated to growth and inclusion for all, and this year we honor that, because the Professor’s stories have always been, and always will be, for everyone.

(continued ➾)

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This year, my fellow Ring-bearer @acornerturned is off on a very grand adventure, so the wonderful Marissa of @thelastkindlyhome - a cornerstone of our Tolkien community here - will be packing her pocket-handkerchiefs to cohost!

Terms & Conditions:⁣⁣

1. Follow Ring-bearers @misskieranjane & @thelastkindlyhome and please tag us in your posts so we don’t miss your lovely contributions! (We can’t promise any magic rings, cash on delivery, or travelling expenses, but we might have a trick or two tucked in our pocket-handkerchiefs.)⁣

2. Follow & use #alongexpectedhobbitday for your posts - but as the Powers that Be have rendered such tools less useful than in the past, please check our Stories to engage with fellow hobbits, dwarves, wizards, etcetera.⁣

3. Participate as you’d like and are able. We are happy to have you along for this adventure in any way that works for you.⁣⁣

We look forward to the pleasure of your company on #fellowshipfriday September 4th to commen

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#coffeeandcurrentread
Kiitos haasteesta, @riippumaton_lukija 💖

Olen lukemassa Ulla Raskin Seitsemän tornin varjoissa. Viimeiset sata sivua menossa ja olen viihtynyt hyvin, vaikka välillä onkin ollut aika hurjaa meininkiä.
Juon yleensä tavallista suodatinkahvia, melko paljolla maidolla ja ilman sokeria, pari kupillista päivässä tulee juotua. Välillä kokeilen eri paahtoasteita ja maustettuja kahveja.

Haastan tägätyt, ja kaikki muutkin, jotka haluavat kertoa lukemisestaan ja kahvinjuonnistaan 😊.

#kirjagram #kirjagramsuomi #kahvijakirja #lukeminenonparasta

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Sain ihanalta @seurakuntienkirjastonhoitaja #26for26 #26for2026 haasteen ❤️

Tällaisilla suunnitelmilla lähdetään, mutta en ota suorituspaineita! Listaan valikoitui paljon oman hyllyn lukemattomia ja kyllähän me kaikki tiedetään, miten niille tuppaa käymään 😁

Hus hyllynlämmittäjät 2026
✔️ Tiina Tuppurainen & Teemu Silván: Rakkaudesta lajiin
✔️ Charlotte Brontë: Kotiopettajattaren romaani
✔️ Mhairi McFarlane: En minä vaan sinä
✔️ Celeste Ng: Tulenarkoja asioita
✔️ Tiina Laitila Kälvemark: H2O
✔️ Cecilia Samartin: Mofongo

Lukupiirikirjat
✔️ Maggie O’Farrell: Hamnet
✔️ Veli-Pekka Lehtola: Entiset elävät meissä - Saamelaisten historiat ja Suomi
✔️ Sanmao: Tarinoita Saharasta
✔️ Amia Srinivasan: Halun politiikka - 2020-luvun feminismi

Historialliset
✔️ Anni Kytömäki: Mirabilis
✔️ Ruth Druart: Viimeinen yö Pariisissa
✔️ Kjell Westö: Rikinkeltainen taivas
✔️ Kaisa Viitala: Klaanin tulevaisuus

Jännitys
✔️ Arttu Tuominen: Alec
✔️ Freida McFadden: Kotiapulainen
✔️ Joona Keskitalo: Järvi, joka murtui
✔️ Donna Tartt: Jumalat juhlivat öisin

Kotimainen kirjallisuus
✔️ Jessi Jokelainen: Femokratia
✔️ Riina Tanskanen: Tympeät tytöt - luokkakipuja
✔️ Leena Paasio: Tuuli kääntyy etelään
✔️ Minna Rytisalo: Sylvia

Käännöskirjallisuus
✔️ Irene Zidan: Isäni appelsiininkukkien maasta (muokkaus: en tehnyt taustatyötä ja tein virheellisiä olettamuksia, kyseessä onkin kotimainen suomen kielellä kirjoitettu romaani!)
✔️ Emily Henry: Lomalla kaikki on toisin
✔️ Frode Grytten: Päivä jona Nils Vik kuoli
✔️ Taylor Jenkins Reid: Tähtienvälinen

Tägäsin joitakin, listatkaa tekin lukusuunnitelmianne 😊

#kirjagram #kirjagramsuomi #kirjagramoulu #oululukee #lukevinkaupunni #kirjakuva #tbrlist #tbrlista #bookphoto #lukusuunnitelma

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