Description:
Winner of the Tolkien Society Award for Best Book
A leading scholar draws on fifty years of reading and studying J.R.R. Tolkien to explain how he created an entire world.
Brief description: Michael D.C. Drout is a professor of English and director of the Center for the Study of the Medieval at Wheaton College. He specializes in Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature, science fiction and fantasy, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin, and is the author of How Tradition Works and Drout's Quick and Easy Old English, among others. He lives in Dedham, Massachusetts.
Review Quotes: A splendid and original combination of sharp analysis and deeply felt emotional memoir. We know what makes Tolkien's fiction good, but what makes it qualitatively different, so that it feels like entering a world, not just reading another book? And what makes it such an effective resource for those experiencing grief and loss? Michael D. C. Drout answers both questions, powerfully, personally, convincingly. He shows how, more than any other work, The Lord of the Rings is not just a story. It's a life-changer.--Tom Shippey, author of The Road to Middle-earth