Tolkien and the Book

[Mister Underhill]

Interesting topic, as usual, Fordim. I unfortunately don't have time to reply at length, but before things get carried away, I feel compelled to mention at least two obvious book references in the story proper that you've missed: Bilbo's extensive collection and his Red Book (natch), and Elrond's books of lore (from which, presumably, Bilbo's "Translations from the Elvish" are translated?):

Then through all the years that followed [Elrond] traced the Ring; but since that history is elsewhere recounted, even as Elrond himself set it down in his books of lore, it is not here recalled...

Aragorn and Gandalf walked together or sat speaking of their road and the perils they would meet; and they pondered the storied and figured maps and books of lore that were in the house of Elrond.

Then again, Elrond is half-Elven...

Originally Posted by Gurthang

Elvish songs were far more potent than books

This is a great point too -- Elvish oral tales and songs, perhaps with a dose of ósanwe, go far beyond what a simple book is able to create:

At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though [Frodo] understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him.