Thanks Aelfwine! I solved the numeral part: just Tolkien converts numbers less than 1 billion to duodecimal -- and all his calculations are correct!

The word part is much harder. I can only recognize thus far:

For ??
maybe ?? as far as twelve
which can also be called ?dozen
All the duodecimals (including the
?, ?) should be
? with lover ?
? 11-1λ (13-23) may
be called dozen-one
to doz(en)eleven.
20 - λ0 (24 - 132) may be called
twodozen to elevendozen shortend
to ? (but not ??
? ) 100 may be called a
gross (144). ? dozen
???

Received the Harper Collins book today. First impressions are very favourable. There is a wealth of material in there. Most of the chapters are fairly short and my impression is that the reading will not be as dense or heavy as some of the HOME volumes. It looks to be a delightful book for dipping into and serendipitous learning.

I have the standard, non-deluxe edition. It’s the usual Harper Collins quality and paper. I’m not bothering with the deluxe as I’m not a fan of the quality.

BookShare is a service that provides eBooks in formats that are usable by people with impairments that make reading standard books difficult (e.g. blindness).

The Nature of Middle-earth is available there on launch day, which is great!

https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/4230722

I'm not convinced that box is going to perform as well at stopping bumps as the recent UT/Sil one did. The thing that made those effective was the folded buffer area top and bottom, which this one lacks. Any significant bump on transit, this one will do nothing.

The book looks very nice, though.

The price of the standard edition in Book Depository just increased to $45 ☹️

Slightly aggravating that the deluxe isn't the same height as the rest. Wonder if it's just a production issue, and some are taller than others. I'll know firsthand, soon enough (went BD!)

Caudimordax wrote:

Slightly aggravating that the deluxe isn't the same height as the rest. Wonder if it's just a production issue, and some are taller than others. I'll know firsthand, soon enough (went BD!)

Given it is LEGO, sPA, I'd suspect they are pretty consistent in production and they will all be a bit too tall. Unusual, as LEGO have been pretty on the money with getting the height right previously, unlike the Chinese reprints that have been all over the place.

A bit of movement on prices now that the books have been released in the US and UK.

Blackwells has a significant reduction on the Deluxe edition, may be the best bet for international shipping currently.

WH Smith no longer offer the Deluxe for sale, though they did a few days ago, I assume that this is due to them not being able to get stock.

Why is it prices so often drop-often significantly-soon after release? Why charge preorders more? Please ignore if this ventures into the realm of speculation.

I note two more possible issue in the book:

p.192 Footnote 3, on Tolkien's sketch of Gandalf
Since Tolkien mentioned "blue hat", I think the art he referred to is more likely fig. 3 in Art of the Hobbit. The image of Gandalf is also more clear in fig.3 than fig.1.

p.236 It was gathered by Tolkien with “Primal Impulse” (chap. II of part two of this book)
"part two" should be "part three".