by Holly Ordway

An exploration of Tolkien’s reading from 1850 forward.  Ordway sets up a narrow criteria – those books that can be proven through extant writing that Tolkien had read. She also spends time discussing how the idea that Tolkien’s reading interests stop around 1100AD came to be and criticizes his major biographer Humphrey Carpenter for bringing a stereotype into his writing and never trying to get to know his subject beyond this caricature.

Ordway does an excellent job of cataloging the books and authors that can be definitively shown to have been read by Tolkien and how phrases, themes, and words came to have some influence.  Fascinating subject written from an academic perspective. I loved it – but its primarily source analysis – so not to everyone’s tastes.

392 pages

5/5