There's never as much time as you want. That applies to every project, every trip, every encounter. It is, I daresay, a universal phenomenon. I dedicated precious little time to eating and sleeping in London, but still could have used another week -- another month -- to see the beautiful sites and thank the kind and generous people that made me feel so welcome. The UK book launch was beyond my wildest dreams, and though the crazy schedule kept me in constant motion, the week would have been a blur at any pace.

From the deepest reaches of my heart, I thank everyone that was a part of this. The book has been a compilation of files on my computer for so long, I could hardly comprehend the stacks of hard copies sitting on tables and shelves at Chappell, The Royal College of Music, The Royal Academy of Music, and Royal Albert Hall. And that's to say nothing of how gratifying it was to see the book in the hands of its readers! Speaking of ... thus far, the book sales have exceeded expectations. We actually sold out at Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, and Amazon France in a matter of four to five hours! That's absolutely unbelievable to me Rest assured, meetings were called Wednesday morning, and more stock is in transit as I type this. I'm told these Amazon sites should shipping books again in the very near future. That said, it may not be a bad idea to advise friends to order quickly, just to be safe!


... And we're not done yet! The US release is now only a few days away, which means I'll be off to New York shortly. Heading from the land of J.R.R. Tolkien to the land of Howard Shore -- I like that.

Before I'm off to the airport again, we have several busy press days lined up. In the coming week I have WBAI radio, ExclusiveMagazine.com, Blu-Ray Journal, MovieGeeksUnited, TheOneRing.net, AintItCoolNews, CBSNews, Underscores.fr ... and probably a slew of others that I'm inadvertently forgetting. Keep your eyes on the Twitter feed if you're interested in coming along for the ride. (And please consider retweeting, if you'd be so kind.)

There was also a good deal of press while I was trotting around London:

David Luhrssen at ExpressMilwaukee.com
Randall Larson at BuySoundtrax.com
Tim Horemans at FilmMusicSite.com
ClubFreeTime.com
David Burger at The Salt Lake Tribune
Mark Sommer at Examiner.com
City Guide NY

UPDATE: More press yet!

Woman Around Town
Turnpage Studios

I found it interesting, this past week, that many of you asked about the future of this blog. Will it keep running now that the book has been realized? With recent announcements regarding The Hobbit's future, and Shore hinting to RAH autograph hounds that it may be time to bring LOTR's extended editions to the Live to Projection series, I feel safe stating that we'll be here for a long time to come. In my most pleasant dreams, I'd always felt the book's release could be not an ending but a beginning. Dream big, folks. It's worth it.