Book reviews

[Bêthberry]

The review of Music in Middle-earth is now available in Tolkien Studies, vol. 8.

For those who don't have access to the journal online (or their own copy), here's a very brief selection of comments from the review, which I hope falls under the 'fair use' guidelines for quoting material. This is the first paragraph and the last sentence.

Originally Posted by Gerald Seaman

[The editors*], along with their collaborators, have produced a very good book on a topic that, from a scholarly perspective, is crucial to the study of Tolkien’s literary project and overall mythology. Readers interested in the central and serious subject of music in Tolkien will want to add this volume to their shelves. It covers the vast terrain of music, song, and instruments carefully and judiciously and fills an important space in the scholarly discussions of Tolkien’s fiction. . . . . This volume has many benefits and no obvious dead-ends; it sets before us a direction for scholarship to follow productively into the future.

*In the interests of maintaining pseudonymity here on the Downs, I've omitted the editors' names.

And to think that it started here on Barrow Downs Street!