These essays leave one wanting something more. If you want to learn more about Middle-earth, you want to read a book ABOUT Middle-earth. Not literary criticism where people talk about their parents. Self-analysis may be the bread and butter of criticism, but it doesn't tell you anything interesting. All the history here is rehashed old stuff. Who cares?

You get essays like "The development of Tolkien's legendarium, some threads in the tapestry of Middle-earth." Please let us come up for air. This is the kind of stuff college professors write so they can get tenure. It's more like Cliff's Notes for The History of Middle-earth. Chris Tolkien has already told us all this.

And who really wants to know something like Luthany became Luthien and then Leithien. This book isn't about Middle-earth. It's about how to cure insomnia. You'll learn as much about Tolkien's dwarfs from this book as you will from a can of tomatoes. Visualizing Middle-earth by Michael Martinez is a much better book. Martinez understands that Tolkien's readers want to know more about the world itself. They don't care who held hands in the park on December 16.

Hey if people like this stuff, more power to em. But I want more books on Middle-earth. This book ain't one of them.

Good Tolkien criticism is sadly rare. Given the amount of fan fluff that's out there, this collection of 14 essays, edited by well-established Tolkien scholars Verlyn Flieger and Carl Hostetter, comes as welcome relief. The essays, all of which are based to varying degrees on the mammoth 12-volume _History of Middle-Earth_ (hereafter abbreviated as HoME) that was recently completed by Christopher Tolkien are divided up into three main sections. Section 1 deals directly with the contents of HoME and what it tells us about Tolkien's creative processes, the history of his ideas and his constantly niggling and tweaking of them. Mostly, these essays help 'make sense' out of the complex assemblage of texts, fragments, etc., that make up HoME. One essay also considers the literary value of HoME, raising the thorny question of whether it's useful only as a scholarly tool or whether there is some actual literary merit to the drafts and fragments contained within. Section 2 is rather short and has three essays on Tolkien's invented languages, focussing on how HomE contributes to our understanding of the development of those languages. The last section deals with more conventionally literary questions, specifically examining how the material in HoME sheds light on questions about plot, influences, sources, structure, etc. A particularly insightful essay here is Paul Thomas's essay on Tolkien's narrative voices in the The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and the various drafts thereof-- noting specifically how (and speculating on why) Tolkien changed the nature of the narrative voice between drafts and final product. A few essays in this latter group revisit topics that have already been discussed near-exhaustively (e.g. the influence of Germanic mythologies on Tolkien), but the scholarship is sound and rigorous all the way through. Highly recommended to Tolkien scholars and to Tolkien fans who want an example of what *real* scholarship (as opposed to fannish pseudo-scholarship a la Michael Martinez) looks like.

These essays are rich in complexity and detail and are recommended for college-level students of Tolkien's writings: they discuss the history of his Middle-Earth world, from the concept of Elvish language and the structure of Elvish verse to Tolkien's lyric poetry. An excellent set of technical discussions on the inviting world of Tolkien.

I read this book in 88 after my son was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and so much is similar to what I have lived. My husband and my other son did not understand why I was protecting him, they were reacting like the doctors the Hinkleys have seen before everything broke loose. I knew he was sick, and I did what Mrs Hinkley did. We have progressed in the field of mental illness, but there is still so much to be done. I wish all parents of mentally disabled people could share their pain. Go to A.M.I.' I know this not a true review of the book, but the book is a true review of the pain we suffer. Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts with others.

Thought this one would be dull but it's incredibly interesting, the story of an average American family and the trials of discovering their son's mental illness. Worth reading!

Back when I first fell in love with the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings about 20 years ago, I ran out and bought everything vaguely connected with Tolkien at every bookstore I could find. This was one of those books (If Amazon were around back then I would never have left the house, except to raise more money for Tolkien paraphernalia). I bought this about the same time that I bought the Guide to Middle Earth. This book is less of a reference work (the Guide has book and page numbers for virtually all of its entries) and more of a short exposition on many of the characters,in the nature of Fowler's quirky but much loved Modern English Usage. I sometimes found the tone of the entries to be a little "out there"-I think Tyler tried to write the companion in the same sort of "this is history I'm recounting" approach that Tolkien took with his various forwards and appendices, but doesn't pull it off so well. Tolkien plays the part of the professor who stumbled across the Red Book of Westmarch without hint of irony; Tyler sometimes sounds like someone who's had too much to drink (a common occurrence) at a meeting of his local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

It is an extensive dictionary/encyclopida of Tolkien's works. I found it very interesting.

Many modern protestants refuse to use Catholic Bibles because they contain these texts. What this book proves is that early protestants believed in their authenticity and it is only in the last hundred years or so that these books have been removed from protestant bibles. However, most of the introductory essays are so opinionated as to be almost useless.

So often we act as if the only Bible canon dispute was between Catholics and Protestants. We leave the Orthodox with no complete Bible as the editions of "Bible with Apocrypha" have only the Catholic/Protestant books. This book includes texts for both Greek and Slavonic Orthodox and the one "appendix" accepted by the Greek Orthodox.

So the articles prefacing the texts are written as dogma rather than history or theology ... who cares? At least now I can have a truly complete parallel Bible for Bible studies.

Footnote: I am not Orthodox but some texts accepted only by the Orthodox as canonical appear as antiphons in Catholic liturgy.

When I first saw this volume, I thought, "It's about time." While we talk behind closed doors of the sex industry, we seldom discuss it openly except as a joke. At the same time, it appears to be growing! And we pretend that those involved in it are not really human beings, people, in fact, who are trying to make a living. As if they were prisoners, we sequester them and ignore them, pretend they don't exist, except when we need what they offer.

Of course, I had some cynical suspicions. Was this the excuse that some sociologist came up with when his wife caught him? At least that suspicion was quickly abated.

One cannot help but be fascinated by some people in the "sex industry." Who are the people who answer the phones on the sex calls? Why do people get involved in making porn movies? The book covered some of that, how, for example, some of the women who do sex calls aren't as stupid as we'd like to think, how they even get some of their ideological points across while on their calls.

Some of the text, however, I found to be silly. There was some that amounted to fairly boring and pretty meaningless statistics. Some of the rest of the text I found valuable. How many of the street prostitutes are crack or heroin addicts? How many are physically abused by their johns? And others I found offensive. There was an entire essay on a group in Oregon who ostensibly trains street prostitutes to get out of the business. That in itself is commendable. But they use "radical feminist ideology" that offends me. While, for example, the word "victim" has been shunned--replaced with more acceptable terms like "survivor"-- what the women are taught is still no less than their roles as victims. It's the Catherine McKinnon school of fem-rhetoric, that women who have sex are inherently victims--err, "survivors"--of the prevalent, powerful patriarchy, and on and on. And men are NOT victims of some of the same workplace politics? It leads me to believe that many of the feminists who proclaim this stuff have never really gone out and gotten a job.

What's more, the author of that essay praised the project, despite its weaknesses, for its phenomenal success rate, which I read as somewhere substantially beneath 20 percent. That to me is far from success. Further, if it is success, the women who partake of it believe in the man vs. woman theology that keeps such "radical feminist" organizations in business. And that's at least sad.

The chapter dealing with the brothel industry in Nevada is fascinating. Granted, there's a little feminist speculation (something of which I may be over-wary because I know the institution at which the editor teaches has a women's studies program--some graduates of which I know all too well--of dubious scholarly merit.) But one fact the chapter ignores has been obvious to me for years: among the reasons prostitution AND gambling are legal in Nevada is that the state is a desert! What else would they do there if you didn't have "industries" traditionally shunned elsewhere! Anyway, there were worthwhile observations and insights in the chapter, and I can't allow a few ideological squabbles to overshadow that.

The final chapter went to United Kingdom for reasons I didn't understand. The writers were able to discuss with various English police departments their views toward prostitution. And many of them felt--as do lots of people, I suspect--that legalization of the practice should be seriously considered. It's "the world's oldest profession," and despite regulations and the like, it ain't going away.

Anyway, much of the book is a bit dry, rather statistical, a bit too pedantic. The subject matter is important, something we really should think about. I wish it had been just a smidgen more titillating, though to have been less serious would have invited the allegation that the writers weren't taking the subject seriously, were perhaps covering up their embarrassment over discussing it.

So, despite its weaknesses, I'm glad it was written. Next step: get decision-and law-makers to read it and institute some changes.

Weitzer's collection spans a wide range of issues from the need to do more research in this area, to legal debates, to international support services. Contributors include Wendy Chapkis and Jacqueline Lewis. Weitzer is careful to include a variety of perspectives concerning sex work, from those who celebrate paid sexuality to those who believe receiving money is recognition of being someone else's property. He also has a nice list of recommended readings, although it's only two pages.

It's a nice little book, that's it. It has some poems about Tolkien and his world with no rhymes (mostly) and some quotes. Some older people or some professors :) might like it, but not me. The only reason I gave it three stars is because it had two funny poems in there.

An essay of Auden's does appear in the book. It is in fact, a hodgepodge of Tolkien related material, mostly essays (including a short biography) but also stories set in Middle Earth, songs, poems, word games, and even recipies written by other authors. It is an interseting look at Tolkien fandom. I found the black & white interior illustrations simply breathtaking the first time I saw this book. For me, it is the most important Tolkien related book not actually written by him, and the one that is most worth having. I found it at a library over ten years ago, and recently gave up hope of ever seeing it again, but here it is.

While all six essays in this slender volume will prove of interest to the reader seeking more background on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic story, I found the essay by Janet Blumberg, "The Literary Background of The Lord of the Rings" especially valuable. Prof. Blumberg not only explains the influences of Anglo-Saxon literature such as "Beowulf" and High Medieval literature such as "Sir Gawain and the Green knight" on elements in LOTR, but also offers a credible explanation for one of the most remarked about elements in the books: the absence of any overt religious practice or worship. This essay alone makes this slender volume a valuable addition to the library of any Tolkien fan.

I used this book as an undergraduate at UW-Madison and a graduate at UVa. I found the material helpfull and easy to understand. Great for the undergraduate course, however it is not up to par for graduate level analysis.

Tolkien scholarship, on the whole, tends to be quite weak. There's a lot of reasons for that, but this isn't really the place to go into them. However, I will say that this collection of essays is no exception to the rule. "Tolkien: A Celebration" consists of 15 essays by different authors, edited by Joseph Pearce (author of another mediocre book on Tolkien). For the most part, the essays are non-scholarly-- they are more like short, off-the-cuff, reflections than serious scholarly analysis.

Most of the essays deal in some way with the "religious" aspects of Tolkien's fiction-- and most of those approach it from a specifically Roman Catholic persepctive. This is a legitimate subject to write about, of course, but it's been done to death before (and better!) by Carpenter, by Kocher, by Kilby, by Flieger, and by a host of other critics. These essays really don't add anything new to the body of Tolkien scholarship-- no new ideas, no new interpretations, no new evidence.

The same is true for most of the non-religious-themed essays as well. Patrick Curry's "Modernity in Middle-Earth", for example, is basically a six-page summary of his own book on the subject, while Elwin Fairburn's "A Mythology for England" is essentially a recap of points that have been made again and again and again by previous scholars (especially Carpenter, and even more Jane Chance who wrote a whole book called "Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England").

In truth, the only two items of genuine interest here are the "personal reminscences" by George Sayer and Walter Hooper, who talk abou their experiences meeting Tolkien, working with him, etc., They're not rigorous scholarship,
nor do they present a radically different picture of the man than Grotta-Kurska's and Carpenter's biographies draw, but they do offer up a few worthy anecdotes. Still, they're hardly essential reading for either the Tolkien scholar or fan.

This isn't, by far, the wost book on Tolkien ever published, but it's not one of the better ones-- and it really doesn't have anything new to add to the critical legacy of Tolkien scholarship.

Some of these esays are really interesting, infact most of them are good. There are some really boring as well. This is light reading about Tolkein from a mostly Catholic perspective. If you want heavy duty scholarship, this isn't the book, but if you want something to read with the morning coffee I really recommend it.

A wonderfully insightful look at the themes, values and processes behind Tolkien's created world.