Isengard

If I've worked it out correctly, today's reading consists of:

The end of The Road to Isengard
The Black Gate is Closed
Flotsam and Jetsam
The Voice or Saruman
The Palantir
Beginning of The Passing of the Grey Company

... which may be the most amount in one day do far!

It's very odd skipping from The Palantir straight to Chapter 2 of The Return of the King - yet Chapter 1 (Minas Tirith) begins with Gandalf and Pippin's arrival in Minas Tirith, whereas Chapter 2 (The Passing of the Grey Company) opens in Rohan with the sound of Shadowfax's hooves retreating into the night.

For Frodo and Sam's journey, I'm still reading from 'The Ring Goes East', whereas, for the whole three chapter Isengard sequence, I took the opportunity to revisit the paperback edition of The Two Towers I bought solely to annotate for our Book at Breakfast LOTR episode - delighting in the fact that the cover depicts Orthanc!

Then for The Return of the King (How can I be reading The Return of the King already?? I only finished Fellowship a week ago!) I am finally reading the 1974 Unwin Books edition with the cover art by Tolkien - the version I bought solely for the sake of completion over a decade ago! Everything about the cover, ghe typeface, and the layout reminds me if the joy of reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time...