"The Downsters And The Critics"

[Estelyn Telcontar]

· Title – Meditations on Middle-Earth

· Editor – Karen Haber (17 different authors)

· Date of Copyright - 2003

· Edition – first

· This book is a collection of essays by various authors, telling how Tolkien and his books influenced them and their writing and/or touching on various aspects of his works. Some of the authors are now famous themselves – Terry Pratchett and Ursula LeGuin are names that every fantasy fan knows, for example.

· The strength of this book is the variety – each chapter is different and interestingly written, many with a good portion of humour. I found many of them to be great “teasers” that got me interested in reading more by the authors. A weakness could be the fact that these are not in-depth critical studies, and not every chapter is equally interesting for everyone, but that is a minor weakness that applies only to those looking for a more scholarly work.

· I do recommend this book as enjoyable reading. Some chapters amused me, some touched and moved me, some were eye-openers. More than that, they made me want to go pick up my LotR and read the story again to recapture the magic that these writers share with us.

· Yes, I recommend this book for novices – it’s fun to read, with short chapters written in a very personal style, not at all dry and academic.


PS - Come to think of it, there is one weakness of the book that occurs to me - its title! It sounds like it could be another of those devotional books based on LotR and is actually something completely different.