Polar Bear has managed to lose all of the careful notes we took throughout this year, so we'll just give you a quick list to start your holiday shopping. Come back soon; we have the elves busy surfing the web for more ideas!

Books

The Mythopoeic Award winners and finalists are always a good choice for any reader of mythopoeic fiction or scholarship. Check out our complete list of winners (and fiction finalists) for 1997 and earlier years.

Information on books is easy to find on-line! Try BookWire for resources and links on titles, authors, awards, bookstores, and just about anything else you can imagine. And don't forget our own growing Books, Books, Books site for other sites recommended by Mythopoeic Society members.

Calendars

Most of us live in places with walls, so we need calendars, right? The 1998 J.R.R. Tolkien Calendar features monthly selections by a variety of artists. To give you an overview of the calendar's successes (and failings), read the Tolkien calendar review by Society artist and critic Paula DiSante. Many other decorative options are available in the usual enormous selection of art- and media-related calendar offerings, including a lovely Arthurian calendar for 1998.

Music

Three recent albums of Tolkien's music are now available:

• The Starlit Jewel from Avalon Rising features songs from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, set to music by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Avalon Rising members Margaret Davis and Kristoph Klover; check out The Starlit Jewel review by Paula DiSante. Avalon Rising performed many pieces from their recording at Mythcon XXVII in Boulder, Colorado.
• The Dutch Tolkien Society has released a CD titled Songs from Middle-earth from The Hobbitons, which can be ordered through various mail order sources.
• Finally, a new CD from the Tolkien Ensemble of Denmark, titled An Evening in Rivendell features folk- and classical-inspired arrangements and a cover illustration by Queen Margrethe 2 of Denmark (from her illustrations of the Danish version of The Lord of the Rings). This is released by Classico Records and likely available through the many European-based book and ephemera mail order companies.

Videos

Events

Celebrate the holiday atmosphere and take someone out to a movie, play, or musical performance. Films are a universally popular and easy entertainment. OK, so a live-action version of The Lord of the Rings isn't one of the season's new offerings (and probably just as well!); but literature fans can enjoy new movies based on the works of Henry James (The Wings of the Dove), Peter Carey (Oscar & Lucinda) or Joseph Conrad (Swept from the Sea). The most comprehensive listing of web sites for individual films and production companies is that on the Yahoo! directory. New listings are always being added!

Going to a live performance -- a play, a concert, or a ballet -- is a rare treat for most of us. The holidays are a good excuse. Even many small communities host holiday productions of The Nutcracker ballet or A Christmas Carol, and check local papers for play versions of The Hobbit, The Wizard of Oz or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, other popular offerings particularly for children's theater groups. If you live in or near a city, the possibilities are even more promising. The San Francisco Bay Area continues its annual presentation of the wonderfully mythopoeic Noh Christmas Carol, and a local troupe is (still) performing the entire collection of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, with a new play every few weeks. Lots of information on local theater and musical events can be found on-line. Try a little seasonal surfing!

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