Tolkien in the Twenty-First Century
The Meaning of Middle-Earth Today

Disappointing since the author never really did spend much time writing about Tolkien’s relevance in the 21st century. Mostly a rehashing of how LOTR+ came to be. For that sort of thing, you’re better off with Tom Shippey’s excellent books, The Road to Middle Earth and JRR Tolkien: Author of the Cen......more

In pieces, astute and fascinating; in others, flat-footed, dead-droppingly, lead-headedly limping. The author makes some well-supported arguments that Tolkien is, in fact, a modern author -- not a throwback to ancient English ballad and epic. He also makes some insupportable claims that the screenpl......more

I have mixed feelings on this book. Let’s start with this: it’s leagues above “The REAL Middle-Earth”; it’s still not that great of a book on Tolkien. The idea is to talk about Tolkien’s relevance into the modern day, and why it’s got such lasting appeal. The result is… this? Which has a basic summa......more

This is my first time reading a lit-crit analysis of Tolkien, so I can't compare the ideas here to others. It's a fascinating dive into origins, biography, comparisons with other media adaptations, and Tolkien's role in a post-COVID world. Highly recommended, though with some reservations as it is a......more

"From Covid to Eucatastrophe” I picked this up while on a short break in London, in Borders Bookshop on Charing Cross Road. Had not heard of the book and it was the last copy in the shop so decided on a whim to buy it. I have recently read various works and studies on Tolkien with varied perspectives......more