People occasionally contact me or the Xenite.Org administrators and ask us if we can help them find Tolkien collectibles. Most often people are looking for audio books or recordings of the old radio adaptions.

There were three radio adaptations that I know of: two by the BBC and one by Mind's Eye Theater. Most people tell me they prefer the second BBC adaptation (the first was not recorded, to the best of my knowledge).

Although I cannot recommend which audio or video resources you want to acquire, I can share some suggestions that may help you in your quest.

First, if you're looking for printed materials, especially older volumes, you should check Forodrim's Chronological Tolkien Bibliography. It may not be the most thorough and complete bibliography out there but it is extremely well-researched and organized. I doubt it omits many major books (it was last updated a few years ago, however, so it doesn't yet include The Children of Hurin or The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun).

For other media there is an old document I worked on in the 1990s, the Middle-earth WorldFAQ (don't ask why I don't have that on one of my sites -- I have no idea of why I don't). It's a starting point, no more.

Peter Collier maintains the Tolkien Library site, where you'll find a lot of information about Tolkien books.

And if you're in to collectibles, you have to check out (Joe) Mike Williams' Tolkien Collector site.

But before you buy anything from anyone, run a few searches on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and eBay. You may find they have what you're looking for in stock.

Finally, if you're not ready to buy anything, but you want to track down a band, musician, album, or song that is connected to Middle-earth then Middle-earth Radio lets you browse a huge catalog of Tolkien music (look in the right-hand column for "Playlist/Requests").

In the future when people contact us for help I will probably just refer them to this blog post. I should have written it a long time ago, I guess.

Enjoy your quest, and may you find what you seek!