As I’m winding down with The Chronicles of Narnia (Review of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader up next), I’m ramping up to reread J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. As this December is 20 years since the Peter Jackson movies came out, starting with The Fellowship of the Ring, I plan to watch those, too. As a supplement to both, I am subscribing to Unauthorized TV to watch the The Forge of Tolkien online lecture series by Professor Rachel Fulton Brown, Professor of History at Chicago University. I’ve already begun watching and it’s a great lecture series. She has so, so much knowledge on this subject.

Something about Middle Earth always says “Christmas” to me, and maybe it’s just that so many symbols and themes in LOTR compliment the themes in Christianity, even though the story isn’t an allegory per se like The Chronicles of Narnia are.

The real focus of December, however, is celebrating the birth of Jesus, and for that I love reading the book of Isaiah, which flips back and forth between the horror of judgement, and the relief of salvation. Also planning to start a personal Bible study on Romans and I have a couple of different commentaries to use for that. Other things I will read: More Agatha Christie, more Regency romances, and a few other books I’ve had hanging around.

Writing for is going well, but I have too many ideas for so many different stories, it’s a challenge some days to just pick one to work on. The plan is to publish Trolls for Dust, Season Three in 2022, as well as a short novel, but an action plan is definitely needed to get this done. Fortunately, this year has been a great time of change in my life and finding and working on things that bring me joy has been a great part of that. Thus, I am spending more thinking time and actual time in writing and planning current stories and upcoming ones.

This week, along with a review of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I will also have one of Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. Sanderson is also a one for religious themes, and so far I am enjoying both his writing and world building. It’s easy to see why he was picked to finish The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (which is now an Amazon TV show).

As far as Korean Dramas, I’ll be done with Bossam soon, and will have a review on that, and I have a list of thrillers and romcoms to try. The recent best shows I have watched have all been thrillers: Mouse, Awaken, Forest. Okay, Forest wasn’t exactly a thriller, but it had thrilling elements and a great kiss scene. Looking forward particularly to: Jirisan, The Veil, Taxi Driver, Doctor Prisoner, and The Royal Gambler. None of the romcoms I’ve put in my watch queue really stand out, and it may be I won’t finish many of them.

Happy upcoming December!