I haven’t read the article yet, but I have watched a fair amount of Malcolm Guite’s YouTube videos. I am deeply into Tolkien and, obviously, enjoy pipes. While his channel is absolutely not about pipe smoking, he smokes a pipe in almost every video. I love to sit back with a pipe and listen to him smoke a pipe and read from (and discuss) passages from Tolkien. If you’ve never seen any of his videos, they’re all done from the perspective that you’re a friend who has dropped by and he shares a pipe, maybe a dram, and some literature with you. Sounds a bit weird or like an annoying shtick, but for some reason it works with Malcolm.
He is quite religious, and when that’s not your thing it can sometimes get annoying. Sometimes you just want to hear about the literature without it turning into a sermon. But if that’s your thing then you’ll love it, because a lot of the writings of the Inklings have obvious Christian connections so it’s probably really interesting.