2023 The Lost Road and Other Writings (George Holmes)

Release Date: 2023.01
Reader: George Holmes
Language: English
Organization: Library of Congress
Publisher: American Printing House for the Blind
ISBN: n/a
Duration: 28 hours 9 minutes
Unabridged: Yes
Country: USA
Licenced: Yes
Formats: Digital
NLS Book Number: DB 113191

Produced by American Printing House for the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled service of the Library of Congress. This reading was made purely for eligible members of this special library service in the USA and not available for commercial release.

George Holmes has recorded well over 500 books in all genres for the National Library Service & commercially. In 2002 he won the Alexander Scourby Award (recognising excellence in talking book narration which he won for The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry). Since he recorded The Fall of Gondolin, he has performed all subsequent Tolkien readings for APH.

While The Shaping of Middle-earth (Vol. 4) was delayed by its complex maps, The Lost Road (Vol. 5) moved through the APH pipeline with surprising speed in late 2022. It’s release was announced in Talking Book Topics, March–April 2024

Part Three of the book is the Etymologies section which is essentially an Elvish dictionary, and it is the reason for the massive 28-hour runtime. George Holmes had to record thousands of individual Elvish roots (e.g., AB-, AK-, BAN-). In the APH production notes, this is cited as one of the most technically demanding segments ever assigned to a narrator. Holmes had to maintain perfect “dictionary” inflection for hours of recording to ensure the blind student could distinguish between the root word and its derivatives. The NLS specifically requested “Level 3” DAISY markers for the Etymologies. This allows you to skip letter-by-letter (A, B, C…) through the dictionary using the navigation buttons on the digital player.

In 2023, the NLS moved to a “Batch Production” model for the Tolkien Legendarium. Instead of recording one book, releasing it, and then starting the next, George Holmes recorded Volumes 3, 4, and 5 in a series of overlapping studio sessions at the APH. As Vol 5 was much simpler than Vol 4, it was processed and ready for release earlier than Vol 4. This “reverse release” caused some confusion among NLS patrons in early 2023, who were happy to see Vol. 5 appear but were left wondering if they had missed Vol. 4. It wasn’t until the January 2024 update that the “missing link” in the First Age geography finally arrived.

Volume	NLS Number	BARD Release	Reason for Timing
Vol. 5: The Lost Road	DB 113191	Jan 2023	Primarily narrative; faster to index.
Vol. 4: Shaping	DB 113190	Jan 2024	Heavy map/diagram content; required complex audio-description work.