Speaking of books.....
 

Summer is a good time to catch up on extra reading. I'm always looking for new titles and ideas. There's at least two threads up now asking for advice on particular titles.

I want to pose a more general question. What are your favorite books about Tolkien's life, his writings, the film adaptations of his books, or related fantasy artwork? It could be an older volume, or something that's come out in the last year because of all the hype with the movie.

Thought it might be fun to hear what others have read and keep that in mind when I go barrelling into the Barrow-downs book shop or to my neighborhood bookstore.

Also, a related question, has anyone read Michael Martinez's book Visualising Middle-earth? What is that about? Did you find it helpful?

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

i have a fond spot for Koch's master of middle-Earth.

it has a whole chapter on aragorn and interesting discussions of the free peoples and the nature of Evil, and a good overview of JRRT's shorter peices.

If you want to focus on Middle Earth, I recommend 'Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator' edited by Hofstetter with loads of commentary about Tolkien's life.

I don't have 'Visualizing..' but have read many of MM's Suite 101 essays...enough to know that I don't really want his book.

I have heard good things about 'Author of the Century' but have not read it.

Non-Tolkien? I very much enjoyed David Brin's two Uplift Trilogies. The first consists of 'Sundiver', 'Startide Rising' and 'The Uplift War'. Very creative writing.

I have a passion for maps, so my favorite Middle earth resource is Karen Wynn Fonstad's The Atlas of Middle-Earth. She took all the geographic and regional material in the works and produced this delighful book.

I'm always taking it out and going through it whenever I'm reading, since the maps in the books themselves are rather small.

I got that for Christmas. It's very good and very extensive. It even has maps of Valinor.

There is more "looking" then reading to do in The Art of the Fellowship of the Ring, but the reading that is there is very interesting. I read every word in it when my power went out for nine hours (of course, that only took about an hour), and there are very interesting details about developing the sets, costumes and special effects for the film.

OH yeah, The Hobbit Companion is also interesting, though it isn't really about Hobbits, it's more about creation of names in Middle Earth.