1. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century by Tom Shippey and
2. The Road To Middle-Earth by Tom Shippey.

Seeing "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" made me pull out my copy of "Lord Of The Rings" and read it all over again.

Shippey has some very good critical essays on Tolkien and LOTR. For example, he muses on the nature of evil. Is evil only an absence, the absence of good? Or is it a presence, something inherent in itself? He points out that in "Return of the King", the Nazgul Lord shows both: he is without form and only able to be harmed by the sword "wrought with spells"(absence) but he is able to wield a weapon and interact physically with others (presence.)

He also made the point that many authors of the twentieth century felt the need to deal with the big topics (world war, the Holocaust, death and destruction) by means of fantasy. For example, Ursula K. LeGuin's classic short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" raises the question of responsibility. Kurt Vonnegut tried to deal with the fire-bombing of Dresden in his books. And Tolkien, obviously, put in questions of good or evil into his works, but hid those questions in story.

What made Tolkien's Middle-Earth so interesting, among other things, was the sense of the ages before the events of "The Hobbit" and "LOTR". For example, in "The Hobbit", Bilbo and the others find Sting, Orcrist, and Glamdring in the troll hoard. It's mentioned that these swords were made in Gondolin, long ago. Readers really didn't have a clue about Gondolin (where was it? Why did it fall?) till the publication of "The Silmarillion", forty years after "The Hobbit" was published. And that's just one of the many details adding verisimilitude. The poem about Beren and Luthien that Aragorn sings. The mention of Galadriel being exiled to Middle-Earth, away from the realms of the Valar. The passages of untranslated Elvish. Narsil being re-forged into Anduril, a repairing of a sword that was broken 3000 years earlier.

Another example of Tolkien's detail is the bit about King Theoden's horse - not only do we know the horse's name, we know the horse's mother's name.

Quote
"Faithful servant, yet master's bane,
Lightfoot's foal, swift Snowmane."
All of these things let us know that Middle-Earth has a complicated and full backstory.

And then there's the exchange that makes me cry every time:

Quote
"But," said Sam, "I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done."

"So I thought too, once. But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."
Shippey touches on this and how it applies to both Tolkien and to the current day.

The author discusses many more things than I can mention here. If you are a Tolkien fan, as I am, you will find these books highly rewarding and very thought-provoking. There is a considerable amount of overlap between the two books (it's obvious the author re-used some of his essay material) but in my opinion, both are worth reading.

3. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Reading Shippey's essays and re-reading "LOTR" caused me to read once more about the Making of Arda, all about the Valar, Feanor and his siblings, the Two Trees, who was Ungoliant, the downfall of Numenor, and so many other things. "The Silmarillion" is one of those books that's best re-read several times so that you can pick up all the stuff you missed the first time around.

4. "Jiffy" - A Family Tradition: Mixing Business and Old-Fashioned Values by Cynthia Furlong Reynolds.
Fascinating history of the Holmes family, owners of the Chelsea Milling Company, the manufacturer of Jiffy baking mixes, corn muffin mix, pie crust mix, etc. The company is over 100 years old and is tiny compared with behemoths such as General Mills, but it is able to have a large share of the market due to their focus on quality and value. The company doesn't advertise other than putting pictures of the Jiffy Mix box on their delivery trucks, counting on 100 years of goodwill and good value to get the word out to consumers. Four generations of the family have survived world wars, the Great Depression, personal tragedies, and monumental changes in the food industry. The book is chock full of historic photos and has a mouth-watering picture of Jiffy corn muffins on the cover.


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