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What 📔book are you reading right now?

You might also want to try his fantasy novel, The Broken Sword. I read it many years ago, and was struck by resemblances between some of the themes there and in Tolkien, particularly in the feeling of an almost physical compulsion of oaths.

IIRC he revised it at one point, but I don't remember which version I read, or if he ever said he was influenced by Tolkien. I can't imagine he wasn't. I need to read it again, I think. It was pretty grim.
 
Yeah, I'm going to start going through his bibliography. I like what I've read so far. I started reading War of the Gods but it was a Hoopla borrow and I wasn't able to finish it in time. I will give it another go some time after I've finished CoT.
 
Isn't there a new "revised" edition? Or maybe it's not out yet.

Or maybe I'm completely mistaken. 😄
 
Squint-eyed Southerner said:
Isn't there a new "revised" edition? Or maybe it's not out yet.
Or maybe I'm completely mistaken. 😄
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Almost.
You mean the 2006 "J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide", the order of the authors is reversed: Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, and the 2006 edition is comprised of two volumes, subtitles "Chronology" and "Reader's Guide". This had a revised and expanded 2017 second edition, with the "Chronology" growing from 800 pages (1,000 with all appendices and indices) to 936 paged, and the 1,135-page (1,262 with all appendices and indexes) single-volume "Reader's Guide" being split into two volumes, bringing the page total of the second edition to 2,720 pages. All info about 2nd ed. is from Wikipedia.
 
I've just started Ghostmaker, which is the second book of the Gaunts Ghosts series set in the Warhammer 40K universe.

 
Re-reading the German translation of the eighth volume of Paul C. Doherty's "Brother Athelstan" series (of nine translated, the entire series has reached 21 volumes in the original by 2022). Set in England, mainly London, in the years 1377 (the year of King Edward III's death) to 1380, "Paul Harding" (a pseudonym Doherty used for some books, and used for all of the - few - German translations) manages to evoke the atmosphere of the London of the time (including its "slum suburb" Southwark, south of London Bridge) with descriptive details surpassing JRRT. But then Doherty is also a historian specializing in that period. His descriptions of the (un-)sanitary conditions, brutal and entirely lop-sided judicial system, (entirely justified) social unrest and the violence it (partially) engendered should give serious pause to anybody harboring naive perceptions of the (late) Middle Ages.
 
StarGift said:
Fellowship of the Ring, which is only notable because shortly after starting I heard music from the movies, so I can only assume that my neighbours are watching Lord of the Rings as I read it.
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Or they could merely be listening to Shore's score.
I listen to the music far mare than I watch the movies. Indeed, i haven't watched the movies in years.
But I listen to the music (different parts of it) at least every few months.
 
Bilbo's Journey by Pearce.
An interesting book. As his subtitle reveals, Pearce sees a great deal of "allegory' in The Hobbit, "hidden meaning" being essentially the definition of allegory. And though Tolkien said he eschewed allegory, he did not entirely avoid it well. (Fortunately, as he said elsewhere, some allegory is inevitable and unavoidable.)

The book has some interesting points, and I would say is worth the read - if only to see how one person finds an allegory or three lurking behind every bush along the road. The comparisons are interesting and worth thinking about, and even if not consciously considered and intentionally delivered by Tolkien himself, most of them can nonetheless be extracted with a certain degree of 'apparent' accuracy for consideration.

I do not find it to be of much value with regard to the book I'm working on - other than to exclude it from concern. But I'm compelled to read it along with the others nonetheless.

 
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These guys are academics..."publish or perish".
 
Deimos said:
These guys are academics..."publish or perish".
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I was a bit puzzled about the "academic" part, but found out that Pearce had become one in 2001, coinciding with his move to the US (when he was 40).
Pearce had published at least ten books before his move to the US and into academia, including two on JRRT: the 1998 "Tolkien: Man and Myth" (which I own), and the 1999 "Tolkien: A Celebration".
Pearce shares a biographical detail with JRRT in being a convert to Roman Catholicism, though in Pearce's case this was at the age of 28, rather than 8 for JRRT.
His book "Bilbo's Journey" mentioned by @Ent above is from 2012. In 2015, he published "Frodo's Journey", with an analogous subtitle.
 
My jab was really more general and slightly tongue in cheek (but only slightly); meaning, so many academics will publish anything just to fill up their CV.
I know who Pearce is, I have his Tolkien: Man and Myth. I support a Catholic College (Thomas More College) where he holds the Visiting Chair of Catholic Studies. I think he is a pretty good Catholic writer (the bar being set -imo- by Joseph Ratzinger)
 
Olorgando said:
In 2015, he published "Frodo's Journey", with an analogous subtitle.
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Thank you. I've added this to my library, having been unaware of it.
Olorgando said:
the 1999 "Tolkien: A Celebration".
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I added this one too. I had heard of it but 'not bothered' until now. I suppose I should give it a read. Having reviewed a bit of its beginning now, it may have a thing or two to say into one arena I intend to cover. We'll see.

As one fond friend of mine once said: "If you buy a book and get just one thing out of it, it was worth the price."

I still find this particular thread the most costly of them all here on TTF..! Too many good things noted. 😟
 
Deimos said:
I think he [Joseph Pearce] is a pretty good Catholic writer (the bar being set -imo- by Joseph Ratzinger)
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As I (also?) only own one of Pearce's thirty-plus publications, as mentioned above, so I wouldn't know.
But as to "setting the bar", I would go with Hans Küng by a huge margin over Ratzinger. We only own a book or two by the latter, which was enough for me, while I've collected 18 books by Küng, including volume 5 (of his collected works of 24 volumes) dealing with the infallibility controversy initiated by Küng's book of 1970. The original books quoted in this volume seem to be out of print.
 
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