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It’s almost Hobbit Day! This very special day of Tolkien Week is celebrated every September 22nd in honor of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins’ birthdays. Or at least it’s been celebrated since 1978 when the American Tolkien Society announced it. So go outside, take off your shoes, break out your favorite Tolkien tome and celebrate all things Hobbit in style

Here are some of the top Hobbit related pop-culture references to get you in the Hobbit Day spirit. Let us know how you’ll be celebrating in the comments!

1. THE BALLAD OF BILBO BAGGINS: Oh the ‘60s. An era of war, love, and a time when Leonard Nimoy sang a song about the exploits of Bilbo Baggins for fun and profit.

Complete with women in elf ears and pixie cuts, this retro song features glorious lyrics like, “Hobbits are a peace-loving folks you know, they don’t like to hurry and they take things slow. They don’t like to travel away from home, they just want to eat and be left alone.” Do not mess with a Hobbit and their second breakfast!

2. SOUTH PARK: This parody episode titled The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers comes complete with an epic quest, six grade Ringwraiths and plenty of “my precious” jokes. Not to mention the usual irreverence we expect from Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Bonus: Gandalf the Grey also appears in the Imaginationland episodes as part of the Council of Nine alongside the Jesus allegory lion Aslan.

3. FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS: Real life New Zealand band turned semi-fictional HBO parodies of themselves Bret MacKenzie and Jemaine Clement create and star in a LotR themed music video for their song Frodo, Don’t Wear the Ring. Dressed as Hobbits of course.

This is made even funnier when you consider that Bret starred in The Two Towers as the fan favorite and fan named character Figwit. He is also an Oscar winner, so amend that to Figwit: Oscar winner. Yeah, that’s a thing.

Photo by David Trawin

Sometimes a bookshelf holds books. Sometimes a bookshelf holds other things. But, occasionally, a bookshelf holds something intangible. Sometimes the idea behind a bookshelf is much more interesting than the books it holds. I know, blasphemy right?!

Books are full of symbolism, metaphor, and concepts that reach out beyond the words and physical pages of the book. Why can’t a bookshelf be more like the books on it? Why can’t a bookshelf be more than just a receptacle for the heavy burden of stories, ideas, conspiracy, and knowledge?

In fact, a bookshelf can be much much more than it seems. Below, you’ll find five bookshelves that contain ideas just like the hunks of paper, words, and glue that sit upon them.

Nothing different. That is exactly what I would do if the world’s end was supposedly near. That was my response to the Y2K panic and The Rapture, so if anything, I am consistent.

Image via Historic Buildings of CT

On Wednesday, September 26th the Whittemore Library in Naugatuck, Connecticut is having a book talk and signing by Quirk author Thomas Craughwell. He’ll be there chatting about his latest book, Thomas Jefferson’s Creme Brulee.

This isn’t the first time Tom stopped by the library. Last time he talked about his book Stealing Lincoln’s Body. If you’re in the area, stop by! You can learn more about the library over on its official website and/or Facebook page.

If you came to Book Expo America this year, you might have been one of the lucky few who snagged our fancy "What's Your Next Book?" ten year anniversary poster. Well, that classy poster has found new life on the cover of this week's Publishers Weekly, as we continue our year-long, ten year anniversary celebration. And we are psyched to see our logo on the cover. 

The fun doesn't stop there though! Along with the fun cover, inside this week's issue you'll also spot three pages of Quirky goodness, designed by our fabulous Andie Reid. We've got them pasted below. 

Thanks for a great ten years, everyone. And make sure you check out our History of Quirk Books Timeline and our Quirk Books Infographic. 

“How do you know the summer is really and truly over? My dad says it’s over precisely one second after midnight on September 21st. My friend Ellen says it’s over the minute you start thinking about whether to buy a binder, or a spiral notebook for school. But for me, the way I know the summer’s a goner is when my brother Pete and Artie, the Strongest Man in the World, go to the beach and try to beat up ocean.” – Pete Wrigley (the older one), from The Adventures of Pete and Pete.

September means school. Even for those of us who aren’t in school anymore, September still means school. It means shorter days, hooded sweatshirts, and getting abnormally excited about CVS having a huge sale on composition notebooks (whatever man don’t judge I do most of my first drafts in those things). Whether you’re moving, losing those precious Summer Fridays, or even just looking forward to finally getting rid of the kids so that they can go back to school, the cycle of the seasons still tends to revolve around that last hurrah of Labor Day, when something ends, or at least something changes, and we’re forced to face the coming fall, for better or for worse.

And yeah, okay, it could definitely be better. But at the same time, keep in mind that it could be a whole lot worse. So to cheer you up, here’s a list of 3 of the best fictional schools*, accompanied by a list of 3 of the worst fictional schools. Whichever helps to ease the pain of the coming autumnal onslaught. The kind of places you look to and wish you could attend — as well as the schools that should make you glad that hey, at least you’re not starting there this fall.

* Excluding our own Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children and Lovecraft Middle School, of course, which are clearly the greatest educational facilities in which you could ever possibly enroll, ahem. Anyway, where were we? Right. Moving on.