Best Books I’ve Read in 2016

Tags

Allison D. Reid, Angela B. Chrysler, Best Books 2016, Book Review, Brandon Sanderson, Elise Kova, George R.R. Martin, Gina Detwiler, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mary Weber, Priscilla Shirer, Scott Westerfeld

**Note: In the interest of consistency, I’m sticking solely to books written after 1900. So while some of my other reads, like Les Mis or Count of Monte Cristo would certainly make the cut I want to make sure to give the spotlight to more recent authors.

10: Dolor and Shadow by Angela B. Chrysler

I was immediately entranced with the premise of the book, since it envisions Viking/Norse mythology from the perspective of the elves. I knew, going in, that there would be a lot to love about the world being built and, in that aspect, I was not disappointed in the least. The worldbuilding here is magnificent and, once you get used to the onslaught of names and places, you can really begin to feel immersed in the world. Things are just so well-developed in this book that it feels reminiscent of the wholeness that Tolkien brought together with Middle-Earth in his books. This is one of the greatest strengths a book can have, that synergy with the wholeness of the world that allows for complete immersion, and is one of the things I love the most about reading fantasy novels. Continue Reading

9: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin

The trio of stories in this collection are absolutely fantastic in every way. In spite of the stories taking place nearly a century before A Game of Thrones, there are many familiar house names and sigils to remind you that you are immersed in the same bloody, conflict-driven world of Westeros that the other books inhabit. Martin is a master at weaving in realistic details of the Medieval world and culture, ranging from the depictions of tourneys to the clothing and armor to the food they ate at the table. Continue Reading

8: King of Ages: A King Arthur Anthology

This is an excellent collection of stories that re-imagine King Arthur through various time periods and acting in various situations. Some of the tales take on a traditional feel, while others are extremely innovative in their approach. Arthur and Merlin are the constants in every tale, although not always with those exact names, and many other gems of Arthurian legend are scattered throughout the thirteen stories in this anthology. It was almost as much fun picking out those references as it was reading the stories themselves, but that is my own love of Arthurian legend talking. Continue Reading

7: Alchemists of Loom by Elise Kova

I love books with dragons in them, and I love it even more when an author does something nontraditional with them. It was why Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina struck a chord with me, and why this book does the same thing. It has dragons, but not in the way you would ever expect. It is interesting how separate the dragon society is from those operating on Loom, yet how critical they are to the magic and technology on Loom. Two thumbs up based solely on the usage of dragons in this book. Continue Reading

6: Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld

Short version: I loved this book. It is exactly the series I needed to read before getting to finish reading Brandon Sanderson’s Reckoners series because I realize now I need a steady flow of new YA superhero novels to keep coming. Because they are awesome and exciting and full of fun in a way that is completely different from watching the latest Marvel movie or binge watching their latest TV show. If this isn’t a thriving subgenre already, Sanderson and Westerfeld will have breathed life into that subgenre. Continue Reading

5: Siren’s Song by Mary Weber

I was so torn for half of this book. I wanted to read this book, because I loved the characters and the world and wanted to know what would happen. Yet part of me wished to delay reading this book even longer in order to prevent my time with Nym and Eogan and Myles and Rasha and the rest to come to an end. This book has seriously sat on my shelf since March, ignored because I didn’t want to conclude this trilogy. Yet, as with all good things, it eventually had to come to an end. And now, looking back, I am so glad I finally got around to reading this book.

I absolutely love Mary Weber’s writing and her fun, engaging characters. The imaginative world. The overwhelming sense of impending doom and dread that casts an overtone upon everything going on. Those things carried through in all three books, each in its own unique way. Yet the sense of despair is at its peak in this book. They even have a timeline, given early on, about when they can expect Draewulf to make his appearance for, what will amount to, their final battle to destroy him and, should they fail, the world will be subjected to his evil plots and armies of wraiths for who in hulls knows how long. Litches, this book still has me hooked. Continue Reading

4: The Prince Warriors/The Prince Warriors and the Unseen Invasion by Priscilla Shirer and Gina Detwiler (Yes, this is two books)

Do not let the ages of the protagonists of this book fool you, this is not just a book for kids. While it is certainly a Middle Grade fantasy fiction book, it excels at being something that people of all ages should be able to read and enjoy. This book’s premise is centered firmly around Ephesians 6:10-18, the Armor of God, but it contains so much spiritual and scriptural depth within these pages that even an experienced Christian could absorb some great insight and practical application from this book.

I absolutely love a good Middle Grade book, and this one rates right up among the highest. The group of protagonists are all easy to identify with, and all of them have both their flaws and their strengths. Not only will a reader be able to identify with at least one of these main characters in the book, it is geared as well to allow an inward reflection and invites you to personally consider yourself within the scope of the world as a Prince Warrior or a Princess Warrior. Continue Reading and don’t miss my review of Book Two as well.

3: The Wind Rider Chronicles by Allison D. Reid (Yes, this is three books! Review snippet from Journey to Aviad, the first book)

The writing in this book is beautiful, elegant, and masterful. It was enchanting and kept me riveted to the tale. The story came alive as I was reading the words, filling my mind and my soul with the poetical prose laced with Christian themes. This is everything I have always sought for in a Christian fantasy book, and something I have rarely seen pulled off with such excellence.

The main character, a young girl name Elowyn, is one of the best young female protagonists that I have read in quite some time, and I thoroughly enjoyed following her on these early adventures in the book. She is at home among the beauty of nature, marveling at the hand of Aviad in shaping all of the things around her and blessing her with beautiful scenes. She has an awe and reverence that is both child-like and mature, something that places well with the Christian themes. Her inner struggles with not being worthy of being in Aviad’s presence is something we all, as Christians, can relate to. Continue Reading, and don’t miss my review of the sequel, Ancient Voices, as well as her companion novella, Into the Shadow Wood.

2: Calamity by Brandon Sanderson

I wanted to read this book like a kid wants to eat a giant lollipop. I was excited to read the book just like the kid gets excited about lollipops, but I didn’t want it to end too soon just like the kid who gets the giant lollipop so they can savor the experience a little longer. Yes, this series will be full of  intentionally bad metaphors, and Calamity certainly had some memorable ones in there. The humor that Sanderson laced into this book, as well as the previous books, makes this a fun read while the action and intrigue makes it an entertaining romp through a world where superpowers don’t go to the good guys. Or, rather, it seems that everyone who gets superpowers turns bad, and they are known as Epics.

It is difficult to write a spoiler-free review of the final book in a trilogy like this, but I want this to be a comprehensive review for more than just this one book. I want someone to read this and go pick up the entire trilogy (Steelheart, Firefight, Calamity) plus the short between the first two (Mitosis). The Reckoners are back in action in this finale that certainly lives up to every expectation that it promised. The showdown that has been coming is epic. And Epic. Continue Reading

1: Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle Earth by J.R.R. Tolkien

A man who is as thorough in his revisions as Tolkien was will inevitably leave behind tales that never quite reach that state of completion. It is no surprise that there are many stories from The Silmarillion that Tolkien attempted to expand upon and never quite reached the end. After all, he was notorious for not only going through a manuscript thoroughly to revise it if there was any indication of interest in publishing it, but he also would start at the beginning of a tale every time he picked it back up to work on it. This habit led to many great beginnings to work that never quite reached that status of being complete. And thus they find life in this publication, alongside various essays on topics such as the Istari and Palantiri, and that is a great thing for fans of Tolkien and of fantasy.

The collection in here ranges from fascinating narratives to a genealogical listing of the kings written in a style that you would expect to find within a history book. There are some items that will interest certain readers more than others, and the impulse of the reader may be to skip ahead to the things of interest and leave the others unread. Which, in many cases, would be to skip over all of the First Age and most of the Second Age stuff. That, I believe, would be a tragic mistake. The best of the tales appear in those two ages, being longer narratives that, while incomplete, give a flavor of the epic nature of the characters rooted in Middle-Earth history. Fans who have read The Silmarillion will certainly enjoy getting a deeper dive into the adventures of some of these familiar figures, such as Túrin Turambar, and even a reader who has not enjoyed The Silmarillion will still find much to enjoy in some of those tales. I’d argue that they are presented in a far more compelling manner than The Silmarillion, having more development and storytelling than appears in the other work. Continue Reading

So there you have it, my ten favorite books from 2016. What are some of your favorites? Have you read any of the books that appeared on my list?

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Coming in 2017: Medieval Book Club

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Anglo-Saxon, C.S. Lewis, Icelandic Sagas, J.R.R. Tolkien, King Alfred, Medieval Book Club, Medieval Literature, Medieval Poetry, reading, Vikings

Today I thought I would make an announcement that I had been working toward for most of this month. As a reader who is interested in the Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic period, I wanted to make an effort to read more books about those time periods and work that was written during those time periods. So I have decided to schedule a monthly discussion throughout 2017, alternating between reading a book-length work and reading poetic works. I hope you will consider joining along with me, and I have provided links to the websites and/or Amazon page to where you can find the works that I am planning to read and discuss.

The goal will be to make a post on the 15th of the month previewing the work that we’ll be reading in the following month (so, for instance, on December 15th I will post a preview/reminder about the January book) and then I will be posting the discussion on the third Thursday of each month (so January 19th would be the first discussion post). Don’t sweat it if you didn’t finish the book by that mark, there will be an active homepage for the series so you can jump in at any time on the previous works and join in on the conversations.

So without any further delay, here are the works I plan to read and discuss in 2017 as a part of this series:

January – The Anglo-Saxon Age: A Very Short Introduction by John Blair

February – Genesis A&B (https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/genesis-ab/)

March – The Discarded Image by C.S. Lewis

April – Exodus & Daniel (https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/exodus/ & https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/daniel/)

May – Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

June – Judith, Dream of the Rood & Juliana (https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/judith/ & https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/dream-of-the-rood/ & https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/juliana/)

July – Viking Age Iceland by Jesse L. Byock

August – Njal’s Saga

September – Finn and Hengest by J.R.R. Tolkien

October – The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Wife’s Lament, The Battle of Maldon (https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-wanderer/ & https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-seafarer/ & https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-wifes-lament/ & https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/battle-of-maldon/)

November –  Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred & Other Contemporary Sources by Simon Keynes

December – Christ I, Christ II, Christ III (https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/christ-i/ & https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/christ-ii/ & https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/christ-iii/)

Fourteen Books I’m Excited About That Are Coming Out in 2016

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B&H Kids, Bloomsbury USA Childrens, Concordia Publishing House, Disney-Hyperion, Feiwel & Friends, Gene A. Getz, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jamie Blosser, Jeffrey Hammer, Marissa Meyer, Michael Clary, Moody Publishers, Our Sunday Visitor, Penguin Books, Permuted Platinum, Priscilla Shirer, R. Southern, Revell, Rick Riordan, Roger Patterson, Sarah J. Maas, Tim Keller, Tim Tebow, Tony Evans, Tyndale House Publishers, Waterbrook

It is September already, and just because we’re on the tail end of the calendar year doesn’t mean that the great new books are already on the shelves. Here are some of the books I’m looking forward to reading that are coming out later this year:

• Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas, Published by Bloomsbury USA Childrens on September 6, 2016
  • Okay, so this book came out ten days ago. So what? This one deserves to make the list because the Throne of Glass series is a wonderful YA Fantasy series and I’m hooked on it. So is my wife, which a testament to how excellent this series is. The hardest thing will be choosing when to read this one, knowing it’ll be some time before the next book might come out…
• Positively Medieval: The Surprising, Dynamic, Heroic Church of the Middle Ages by Jamie Blosser, Published by Our Sunday Visitor, Releases on September 22, 2016
  • I love all things Medieval, and the history of the church in the Middle Ages is certainly something right up my alley for interest. The title really makes me want to find out what the church did that was so dynamic and heroic!
• The Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan, Published by Disney-Hyperion, Releases on October 4, 2016
  • This is probably the #2 book that I am excited about on this list. I absolutely loved the first Magnus Chase book when I listened to it last year, and I have no doubt that Riordan will deliver once again with this book. Now that I am more familiar with the Norse mythology, I’ll be able to delightedly pick up on the many references steeped throughout the text.
• Camelot Rising by Michael Clary, Published by Permuted Platinum, Releases on October 4, 2016
  • Okay, so I didn’t even know this series existed and I have not read the first book yet. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be excited about the second book in a King Arthur series coming out, right? After all, I have a weakness for Arthurian fiction…

 

• Kingdom Prayer: Touching Heaven to Change Earth by Tony Evans, Published by Moody Publishers, Releases on October 4, 2016
  • I loved his book, Kingdom Man, and it is a book I plan to reread again in the near future. Prayer is an area where I need to improve, and I have a feeling that this book might be exactly what I need to spark an improved prayer life.

 

• 

  

  The Prince Warriors and the Unseen Invasion / Unseen: The Prince Warriors 365 Devotional by Priscilla Shirer, Published by B&H Kids, Releases on October 15, 2016

  • Last weekend I was in the local Family Christian store and saw the first book of this series. I was intrigued and made a mental note that I wanted to pick it up eventually and read it. Imagine my surprise when I was able to get a digital copy of the first book to read this week. While I haven’t started in on it yet, I feel confident placing the second book on this list. And a companion devotional for Middle Graders? I’ll be taking notes on how I could do the same thing with my own writing!
• Shaken by Tim Tebow, Published by Waterbrook, Releases on October 25, 2016
  • I still haven’t read Tebow’s first book, but I have it on good authority from a wonderful book blogger that it was an excellent read. I’ve been a fan of Tebow for a while now, and this book promises to deliver a very interesting read.

 

• The Penguin History of the Church: Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages by R. Southern, Published by Penguin, Releases on October 27, 2016
  • This is a Kindle release of a book that has been out in paperback for some time, but I am still excited about this one. Two books on the Medieval Church history? The Medievalist in me approves!

 

• The Measure of a Man: Twenty Attributes of a Godly Man by Gene A. Getz, Published by Revell, Releases on November 1, 2016
  • This is an updated rerelease of a bestselling book, and one that I didn’t know existed until now. You’ll see the pattern repeated with a few more books further down the list, but I love reading books relating to Biblical Manhood. It is a topic that just doesn’t get discussed enough yet is so critical to the future of this nation and the church.
• The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun by J.R.R Tolkien, Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, Releases on November 3, 2016
  • Two new Tolkien books in one year? While I still need to pick up a copy of Kullervo (I had won a copy on Twitter that never arrived…I’m not bitter at all about that…) this book has me interested enough to have it claim the top spot over the Magnus Chase book. They can keep on publishing anything and everything Tolkien and I will keep on buying
• Heartless by Marissa Meyer, Published by Feiwel & Friends, Releases on November 8, 2014
  • Confession: I haven’t read Meyer’s bestselling Lunar Chronicles series. Not a word of it. It is still on my exhaustive TBR list, but maybe I can redeem myself by keeping up with this new book which takes place in Wonderland. I’m a huge fan of Carroll’s books, so this one probably has a greater personal appeal than fairy tale retellings and I am eager to see how this turns out.
• Man Up!: The Quest for Masculinity by Jeffrey Hammer, Published by Concordia Publishing House, Releases on November 22, 2016
  • As mentioned above, I am a huge proponent for Biblical Manhood and so any Christian books written on manhood are going to be on my radar. I already love the book from some of the description on the blurb, such as describing manhood as being counter-cultural (which real manhood certainly is right now) and to gain the standard from manhood by looking at Jesus as an example. Words can’t describe my eagerness to dive into this one.
• Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller, Published by Penguin Books, Releases on December 6, 2016
  • I love Tim Keller’s work, and I’m guessing this book is a must-read for every Christian. Being able to explain your faith in a way that can reach the people of this world today is a critical thing to be able to do. And he should know how to do this effectively, having led a church in the heart of New York for many, many years.
• A Minute of Vision for Men: 365 Motivational Moments to Kick-Start Your Day by Roger Patterson, Published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Releases on December 6, 2016
  • I’ll be on the look-out for a new men’s devotional soon, and this one sounds like it might just be what I’m needing. I’ve had mixed success with devotionals for men, but this shows real promise. With this to start my day, I hope to finally fulfill the words in Tony Evans’ Kingdom Man: “A kingdom man is the kind of man that when his feet hit the floor each morning the devil says, ‘Oh crap, he’s up!’”

 

So there are the fourteen (well, fifteen if you count the Prince Warriors devotional) books that are coming out between now and the new year that I am excited about. What books are you looking forward to reading?

Book Review: The Unfinished Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien

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Book Review, J.R.R. Tolkien, Middle-Earth, Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales

Kudos to Jamie over at Books and Beverages for selecting this book to read for her August discussion. Now that I have had a few weeks to let it all mull over since I finished, I thought it would be time to get my thoughts out in the form of a review. There are a few things I learned by reading this book:

• I will gladly read anything and everything Tolkien I can get my hands on and enjoy every minute of it. I pretty much already knew this, but going through this book confirmed things.
• The stories of the Third Age are not superior simply because those are entwined with the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Tolkien had a wealth of grand stories that took place long before those books, and some of them are possibly even better than the Lord of the Rings.
• I can’t get enough of Túrin Turambar, even though I just read The Children of Húrin and reread The Silmarillion last year.

If I had to pick out the three pieces in this book that I enjoyed the most, they would be “Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin”, “Narn i Hîn Húrin (The Tale of the Children of Húrin)”, and “Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner’s Wife”. While the pieces on Galadriel, the history between Gondor and Rohan, and Gandalf’s recounting how he convinced Thorin to take Bilbo and journey to reclaim Erebor were all fascinating, the three stories I mentioned all stole the show and I found myself wishing they all were longer.

Title: Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (9/19/2001)

Pages: 472 (Hardcover)

Blurb: A New York Times bestseller for twenty-one weeks upon publication, UNFINISHED TALES is a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth to the end of the War of the Ring, and further relates events as told in THE SILMARILLION and THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

The book concentrates on the lands of Middle-earth and comprises Gandalf’s lively account of how he came to send the Dwarves to the celebrated party at Bag-End, the story of the emergence of the sea-god Ulmo before the eyes of Tuor on the coast of Beleriand, and an exact description of the military organization of the Riders of Rohan and the journey of the Black Riders during the hunt for the Ring.

UNFINISHED TALES also contains the only surviving story about the long ages of Númenor before its downfall, and all that is known about the Five Wizards sent to Middle-earth as emissaries of the Valar, about the Seeing Stones known as the Palantiri, and about the legend of Amroth.

Writing of the Appendices to THE LORD OF THE RINGS, J.R.R. Tolkien said in 1955, “Those who enjoy the book as a ‘heroic romance’ only, and find ‘unexplained vistas’ part of the literary effect, will neglect the Appendices, very properly.” UNFINISHED TALES is avowedly for those who, to the contrary, have not yet sufficiently explored Middle-earth, its languages, its legends, it politics, and its kings.

My Take: A man who is as thorough in his revisions as Tolkien was will inevitably leave behind tales that never quite reach that state of completion. It is no surprise that there are many stories from The Silmarillion that Tolkien attempted to expand upon and never quite reached the end. After all, he was notorious for not only going through a manuscript thoroughly to revise it if there was any indication of interest in publishing it, but he also would start at the beginning of a tale every time he picked it back up to work on it. This habit led to many great beginnings to work that never quite reached that status of being complete. And thus they find life in this publication, alongside various essays on topics such as the Istari and Palantiri, and that is a great thing for fans of Tolkien and of fantasy.

The collection in here ranges from fascinating narratives to a genealogical listing of the kings written in a style that you would expect to find within a history book. There are some items that will interest certain readers more than others, and the impulse of the reader may be to skip ahead to the things of interest and leave the others unread. Which, in many cases, would be to skip over all of the First Age and most of the Second Age stuff. That, I believe, would be a tragic mistake. The best of the tales appear in those two ages, being longer narratives that, while incomplete, give a flavor of the epic nature of the characters rooted in Middle-Earth history. Fans who have read The Silmarillion will certainly enjoy getting a deeper dive into the adventures of some of these familiar figures, such as Túrin Turambar, and even a reader who has not enjoyed The Silmarillion will still find much to enjoy in some of those tales. I’d argue that they are presented in a far more compelling manner than The Silmarillion, having more development and storytelling than appears in the other work.

All in all, this is a welcome piece to any Tolkien collection and an enjoyable group of stories and essays to read about Tolkien and his work. It would also appeal to any writers of fantasy to see some of how Tolkien worked, and the depth he put into fleshing out the history of the fictional world he created. I cannot recommend this book enough and know I will be diving back into this one as often as I will be The Silmarillion.

Tolkien’s Poetry in the Hobbit

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Critical Insights, Guest Post, J.R.R. Tolkien, Josh Brown, Poems and Songs, The Hobbit

Today’s post is provided by Josh Brown, who has been featured on here a few times before. He has a piece on Tolkien’s poetry and songs that will be coming out next month in Critical Insights: The Hobbit, and this is something I’m very excited about and going to have to try to get my hands on. The table of contents for this piece can be found at the end of the post. Enjoy this guest post from Josh and be sure to check out his other work.

 

When someone says “J.R.R. Tolkien,” Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit almost always come to mind first. No doubt he is most well-known for these seminal works of fantasy fiction, works that very nearly defined the genre and have been praised and admired for multiple generations.

But J.R.R. Tolkien was also a very accomplished poet (and linguist), and he made good use of poetry within his works of fiction as a means to worldbuild, support the plot, and bring life to the characters. Not a single chapter goes by in The Hobbit without a song or poem. Have you ever wondered why?

Take the dwarves’ poems, for example. Most are written as quatrains with rigid form and meter. In “Far over the misty mountains cold” the reader gets information about dwarvish history, heritage, craftsmanship, and traditions. The poem actually outlines the entire basic plot of the book: they are about to set forth on a journey to reclaim their lost inheritance.

Elvish poetry arouses imagery of nature, while at the same time keeping a playful and light-hearted tone. Consider “Roll-roll-roll-roll,” where the elves can make even the most repetitive kind of work seem like a game of sorts. They are whimsical and cheerful, and express and expose these traits of theirs through their poetry.

Goblin poetry is dark, evil, even terrifying, just like the goblins themselves. Goblins are basically the opposite of elves, and this comes through in their verse. Their poetry has clipped lines that brings forth images of jagged teeth and snapping jaws. The mono-syllabic word choices in their poems portray them as simple and grotesque.

Tolkien was a master of his craft. There’s no doubt he crafted each line, each word, and each syllable of every poem within The Hobbit for a very specific purpose. Whether dwarvish, elvish, goblin, or hobbit, Tolkien’s poetry offers a contrast between the races of Middle-earth in verse, structure, and theme.

——-

Josh Brown is a writer living in Minneapolis, MN. He is the creator of “Shamrock,” a fantasy/adventure comic that appears regularly in Fantasy Scroll Magazine. His comic work has appeared numerous places, including the award-winning Negative Burn. His poetry and short fiction can be found in Mithila Review, Star*Line, Beechwood Review, Scifaikuest, SpeckLit, and a variety of anthologies such as Lovecraft After Dark (JWK Fiction), The Martian Wave 2015 (Nomadic Delirium Press), King of Ages: A King Arthur Anthology (Uffda Press), and many more.

Josh’s “Poems and Songs of The Hobbit” is an essay included in Critical Insights: The Hobbit, available from Salem Press in September 2016. Critical Insights: The Hobbit, features in-depth critical discussions from top literary scholars.

http://www.salempress.com/press_titles.html?book=480

Critical Insights: The Hobbit

Table of Contents

Introduction

Stephen W. Potts: The Portal to Middle-earth

Context

Kelly Orazi: J. R. R. Tolkien’s World: Cultural and Historical Influences on Middle-earth’s Subcreator

Alicia Fox-Lenz: An Unexpected Success: The Hobbit and the Critics

Jason Fisher: The Riddle and the Cup: Germanic Medieval Sources and Analogues in The Hobbit

John Rosegrant: Bilbo Baggins, Harry Potter, and the Fate of Enchantment

Critical Views

Hannah Parry: “Of Gold and an Alloy”: Tolkien, The Hobbit, and Northern Heroic Spirit

Jared Lobdell: “Witness Those Rings and Roundelays”: Catholicism and Faërie in The Hobbit

Kris Swank: Fairy-stories that Fueled The Hobbit

Josh Brown: Poems and Songs of The Hobbit

Sara Waldorf: A Turning Point: The Effect of The Hobbit on Middle-earth

Jelena Borojević: The Hobbit: A Mythopoeic Need for Adventure

Kayla Shaw: Growing Up Tolkien: Finding our way through Mirkwood

Aurélie Brémont: How to slay a dragon when you are only three feet tall

M. Lee Alexander: Tolkien and the Illustrators

A Beginner’s Guide to the Inklings by Jamie Lapeyrolerie

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A Hobbit a Wardrobe and a Great War, Bandersnatch, Books and Beverages, C.S. Lewis, If I Had Lunch With C.S. Lewis, Inklings, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jamie Lapeyrolerie, Mere Christianity, Reader's Guide to Inklings, She Laughs With Dignity, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, The Silmarillion

Welcome to another guest post, this time from Jamie who blogs at Books and Beverages, as well as a faith-driven blog at She Laughs With Dignity. I originally found Jamie through her Inklings Week celebration this year, and have followed along since. She holds monthly book discussions on the Inklings, ranging from books written by Tolkien and Lewis to books written about Tolkien and Lewis and the other Inklings. I highly encourage you to check her sites out, and to join her in August as she discusses Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales.

Hello reader friends! Thanks David for having me on the blog – I love any excuse to talk about all things Inklings!

There are of course the go-to and obvious picks (and most popular) for Tolkien and Lewis. If you haven’t read them yet (which, why not friends?! Please make your life awesome and read their books!), then I’m here to help. Those include The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (I’d start with The Hobbit) and for Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia (if you want someone to read them with you, just let me know, I’m in). But lucky for us, the options don’t stop there.

There’s so many more books they wrote and books about them, so I wanted to share a few I suggest to folks outside of the previously mentioned ones.

First up, Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. It’s not a quick read, but I love it. It takes you deeper into Tolkien’s brilliant imagination and world. He once said he wanted to create England’s mythology and that he did.

Next up are a few of my absolute favorites of Lewis. I haven’t read every single book from Lewis (but getting there!), but with each new read, I still find myself coming back to these. The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce and Mere Christianity are first up for my non-Narnia recommendations. The first two, not only because they are so creative, engaging and even bring about a laugh or two, but because they get you thinking about the bigger picture, purpose and what you believe.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from The Screwtape Letters (which is an older demon teaching a younger demon how to get believers to fall away)

“You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts…” The Screwtape Letters

Here’s one of my favorites from The Great Divorce:

“There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing of God Himself…as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ. Man! Ye see it in smaller matters. Did ye never know a lover of books that with all his first editions and signed copies had lost the power to read them? Or an organiser of charities that had lost all love for the poor? It is the subtlest of all snares.” The Great Divorce

Then there’s Mere Christianity, and well, where to begin with this one? It’s brilliant and the words he wrote during World War II are just as relevant and needed today. I recommend this book to everyone whether they share my beliefs or not.

It’s impossible to pick one quote to represent any of Lewis’ books, but especially Mere Christianity. I highlighted so much of the book, but here’s one:

“Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”  Mere Christianity

I’ll end with three books I really loved written about Tolkien and Lewis. If you want to learn more about the writers, these are great places to start!

If I Had Lunch With C.S. Lewis by Alister McGrath – This is a quick read and great introduction to Lewis and his books.

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War by Joseph Loconte – I absolutely LOVED this book. It looks at the war experiences of Tolkien and Lewis and the role it played in their writings. Very worth your time – you’ll grow to appreciate their works even more.

Bandersnatch by Diana Pavlac Glyer – This talks about the Inklings and the collaboration with the men involved. It’s fascinating and encouraging, especially for writers (but not just for writers!)

There were several other Inklings involved and my goal in the coming year is to start reading some of their books. If Tollers and Jack hung out with them, you know that means they were awesome. Maybe next year I’ll be able to have a Beginner’s Guide to them! Happy reading friends!

Thanks again for joining me and I would love to connect around the internet, so please feel free to connect! I also host a monthly Inklings discussion where we read a book written by or about Tolkien and Lewis and then discuss. It’s a ton of fun and would love for you to join in! You can find our next read here!

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Tolkien on Sub-Creation

Tags

Christianity, J.R.R. Tolkien, Medievalist Monday, Mythopoeia, On Fairy-Stories, Sub-Creation, Sub-Creator

J.R.R. Tolkien was a man who worked to create a mythology for his own nation of England. That was the driving thought behind his entire work, and the reason why his world-building was so extensive and stretched across three ages in his world, including his own version of the creation story. While C.S. Lewis wove Christian elements throughout his Narnia series with allegory, such as having Aslan stand in for Jesus, Tolkien absolutely hated allegory and (mostly) avoided writing it in his own works. Which is why in his books you can hunt for the areas in his book where his own Christian thought influenced his writing, but you won’t find a simple answer such as “Gandalf is Jesus”. It isn’t as simple as that.

The discussions between Tolkien and Lewis on the place of allegory in their fiction ultimately led to Tolkien writing a poem, “Mythopoeia”, in response to Lewis’ claim that myths were “lies breathed through silver”. If you have not read it, the poem is fantastic and worth the 5-10 minutes invested. But the focus I want to spend today is looking at a similar work that Tolkien did, his lecture “On Fairy Stories”, which is also very much worth the 30-60 minutes invested in reading that lecture. I will have links to both of those included at the end of this post.

In the lecture, Tolkien expresses the idea (among many other ideas, such as that Fairy-Stories are not simply for entertaining children) that we like to create things because we were created in the image and likeness of God. When you open the Bible to the first page, the first words you read are “In the beginning, God created”. We serve a creator God, who formed the heavens, the earth, the stars, the oceans, the birds and beasts, men and women, and so much more. When He made man, he created him to be in the image of God. So it stands to reason that, because God Himself enjoyed creating things, it is perfectly normal and natural for mankind to enjoy creating things. Tolkien termed this as sub-creation, because man cannot create something out of nothing like God, but rather can take things and form them into something new. This was, in some ways, Tolkien’s way also of defending his decision to write fantasy stories rather than something that Oxford might find more worthwhile, such as literary fiction.

I have always been drawn to this perspective on the sub-creation, going as far as to view it as an expression of worship. To that end, I strive to glorify God with my writing whenever possible, although sometimes the stories being told may not be obviously Christian. The worldview I have influences many decisions that I make in my own writing, much as it did with Tolkien. That is why, even in some of the darkest and gloomiest moments in his stories, there are times of extreme joy that shine through.

I think it is fitting to allow Tolkien to conclude this post, so here are a few quotes from “On Fairy Stories”, followed by one from “Mythopoeia”.

“Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”

“The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” In its fairy-tale — or otherworld — setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”

“I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt makingcreatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature. The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: ‘mythical’ in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the ‘inner consistency of reality’. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.”

A link to “On Fairy-Stories”: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwip9b6c_9nNAhWHx4MKHeYPBIMQFggiMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fidiom.ucsd.edu%2F~bakovic%2Ftolkien%2Ffairy_stories.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFK3iiPL5lTYvB4fU-NZ11XRJHRDg&sig2=1u3yQeAWJbLQiu3bBvc47A

“The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, ’twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we’re made.“

Link to Mythopoeia: http://mercury.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html

Scholarly Saturday: Beowulf

Tags

Anglo-Saxon, Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien, Old English, Poetry Month, The Wanderer

Welcome to another edition of Scholarly Saturdays. Each Saturday in April I am covering a major poetic work that I highly recommend reading, along with a shorter work to read and enjoy that has some sort of connection to the longer poem. Sometimes the connection is based on time period, like today’s shorter poem. Other times it is connected by subject matter, like last week’s shorter poem. Here are the three major poems I have covered so far in April:

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
Paradise Lost by John Milton

And this week we will be discussing what is perhaps my favorite of the five works getting covered in April: Beowulf. There is a lot to love about this poem, which has monsters and a dragon and three epic battles. This is the longest poem that was composed in Old English and is comprised of three acts: Beowulf versus Grendel, Beowulf versus Grendel’s Mother, and Beowulf versus the Dragon. Beowulf is a Geat and comes to the aid of the Danish kingdom to help them ward off the monster Grendel. The first two acts take place around the same time among the Danes, whereas the Dragon encounter occurs 50 years later after Beowulf has become the king of the Geats.

Beowulf was a work that J.R.R. Tolkien taught frequently throughout his career. He was famous for coming into the classroom reciting the first 50 lines of the poem from memory in Old English (While it isn’t Tolkien, this is a good video of the opening lines in Old English). He wrote two fantastic essays on this work, one of which was highly influential on the way Beowulf was studied and still holds sway to this day for scholars of this work. Tolkien knew this poem extremely well and had outstanding notes and lectures on this work. While the translation released recently was never intended by Tolkien to be published – I firmly believe he would have published a poetic translation rather than a prose one – the notes and commentaries within that book make it worth the investment to anyone with an interest in this poem.

Perhaps the most beloved of translations is the one by Seamus Heaney, which is the translation that I will be using for this short excerpt from the poem where Grendel is approaching Hrothgar at night, not knowing that Beowulf is there waiting for him:

Then out of the night
Came the shadow-stalker, stealthy and swift;
The hall-guards were slack, asleep at their posts,
All except one; it was widely understood
That as long as God disallowed it,
The fiend could not bear them to his shadow-bourne.
One man, however, was in a fighting mood,
Awake and on edge, spoiling for action.
In off the moors, down through the mist bands
God-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.
The bane of the race of men roamed forth,
Hunting for a prey in the high hall.
Under the cloud-murk he moved toward it
Until it shone above him, a sheer keep
Of fortified gold. Nor was that the first time
He had scouted the grounds of Hrothar’s dwelling—
Although never in his life, before or since,
Did he find harder fortune for hall-defenders.
Spurned and joyless, he journeyed on ahead
And arrived at the bawn. The iron-braced door
turned on its hinge when his hands touched it.
Then his rage boiled over, he ripped open
the mouth of the building, maddening for blood,
pacing the length of the patterned floor
with his loathsome tread, while a baleful light,
flame more than light, flared from his eyes.

There are many excellent translations out there to read this poem in full. And for those who don’t think they are ready to tackle the full poem, there is a wonderful website, Beowulf for Beginners, that might be a great entry point to appreciating this poetic work.

The shorter poem being shared today, in the spirit of Beowulf, is an Anglo-Saxon poem titled “The Wanderer”. It is believed to be about a warrior who gets rendered unconscious during a battle in which his chief dies, and this is him recounting his plight later in life. It is a short poem, just over 100 lines long, but an enjoyable delving into the Medieval poetry.

Read “The Wanderer” here.

For those bold enough, you can also listen to it in its Old English form.

Have you read Beowulf before? Was it assigned reading for a class or merely for pleasure? What are your thoughts on “The Wanderer”?

Tolkien on Translation

Tags

Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien, Medieval Literature, Middle English, Old English, Translation

Yesterday we celebrated the works of J.R.R. Tolkien with a Tolkien Reading Day, so it is only fitting that today, for Scholarly Saturday, the post concerns Tolkien. This turned out to be a coincidental scheduling, as I did not remember the Tolkien Reading Day until Thursday, but it was a fun day. I helped run a chat throughout the day on Twitter, and you can search through the #TolkienChat entries to see what we discussed and chime in with your own thoughts on the books, movies, soundtrack, and more.

There are many excellent works of literature out there to read, and understanding how translation affects your experience with a text is essential to getting the most out of anything that was written in a different language. Tolkien was a linguist and a Medievalist. He devoted himself to reading texts like Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Poetic Edda, Prose Edda, and many others. He formed a group known as Kolbitars (Coal biters) that would sit by a fire at night and read their own impromptu translations of Icelandic Sagas. He developed his own languages throughout his works, the most popular being the Quenya and Sindarin (both of them a form of Elvish) languages. He understood the importance of translation and wrote about it at some length.

In his essay, “On Translating Beowulf” (originally published as “Prefatory Remarks on Prose Translation of Beowulf“), Tolkien writes that, “No defence is usually offered for translating Beowulf. Yet the . . . publishing of a modern English rendering needs defence: especially the presentation of a translation into plain prose of what is in fact a poem, a work of skilled and close-wrought metre” (Tolkien, ix). In other words, the translator fails to defend their reasoning for providing this new and different translation of Beowulf to the world (when there are already many good translations to be had), and felt that those who translated the poem into prose especially needed to provide a strong defense for their decision. A poem loses something when it becomes a prosaic story, yet the ironic thing is Tolkien’s own translation of Beowulf was in prose form. Granted, he never anticipated this translation being published and, if he had, I imagine he would have either done a poetic translation or else offered a suitable defense for his decision to translate it into prose. For, as Tolkien himself stated regarding a prose translation of Beowulf, “The proper purpose of a prose translation is to provide an aid to study” (Tolkien, x) rather than one to read and study on its own. A prose translation was to function as a supplement to a poetic translation, or the text in its original form.

Tolkien also weighed in regarding the choice of using modern words or the words that would have been fitting for the time period of composition. Tolkien believed, “if you wish to translate, not re-write, Beowulf, your language must be literary and traditional: not because it is now a long while since the poem was made, or because it speaks of things that have since become ancient, but because the diction of Beowulf was poetical, archaic . . . in the day that the poem was made” (Tolkien, xvii). So he was firmly entrenched in the camp that believed using older terms, fitting for the time period, was the way to go rather than pandering to the modern crowd’s choice of vocabulary. This is something you can see not only in his translation work, but also seeping through all of his writing. Even children’s tales, such as Roverandom, use words that fit the story rather than ones that fit the audience. Yet while Tolkien was a proponent for a traditional translation, he also cautioned that “words should not be used merely because they are ‘old’ or obsolete. The words chosen . . . must be words that remain in literary use, especially in the use of verse, among educated people” (Tolkien, xix), which is why you won’t see thees and thous and other completely outdated stylistic language in his work.

This is only scratching the surface on Tolkien’s thoughts regarding translation. I highly recommend getting a copy of The Monsters and the Critics, which has his essay “On Translating Beowulf” in full along with six other worthwhile essays/lectures from Tolkien.

When it comes to translations, here is a list of the works he translated and had published:

Beowulf
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Pearl
Sir Orfeo
Ancrene Wisse
The Old English ‘Exodus’
Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode

Works Cited

Tolkien, J.R.R. “Prefatory Remarks on Prose Translation of Beowulf.” In Beowulf and the 

          Finnesburg Fragment: A Translation into Modern English Prose. Tr. John R. Clark Hall.

Ed. C.I. Wrenn. London: Allen & Unwin, 1950: ix-xxvii. Print.

I Write Like…

Tags

1984, Animal Farm, author, Fantasy, finalist, George Orwell, Hannah Anne, I Write Like, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, ogre, princess, short story, The Hobbit, Writing, writing contest

This morning begins with an announcement: I have made the final ten on the Writer’s Week contest at Seuss’s Pieces. Between now and October 24th you can go read the ten entries and vote for your favorite. Be sure to check out my story, The Unobliging Princess, and cast your vote for the story you think should win. And then share the contest with others so they can enjoy reading the ten blog posts as well.

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Yesterday a fellow blogger, Eric from Sinistral Scribblings, posted something on his Facebook. He had discovered the website known as I Write Like, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with famous authors. He used the tool with his Hannah Anne series, which he plans on novelizing for NaNoWriMo, and was given the result that he writes like Neil Gaiman. He expressed excitement about those results, claiming it reassured him that he was on the right track with that story.

So, of course, I was now interested to find out what famous author I write like. I took my two biggest stories from the blog and inserted them into the website’s analyzer. I was shocked by the results, to say the least.

My serial novel, The Curse of Fierabras, was the first thing I tested. I copied my entire first draft in there in order to get the most accurate results, and I discovered that I write like George Orwell. How cool is that? I write like the author of great novels like 1984 and Animal Farm!

I write like
George Orwell

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

And then I took my other multi-part story, Ogre Hunt, and put it in the website’s analyzer. I thought Orwell was good, but the results from this one turned out to be even better. It told me that I write like J.R.R. Tolkien. Yes, the author of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. My jaw hit the floor from those results. Tolkien is the master of the fantasy novel. To be compared in any way to his writing is a humbling honor.
Are you interested to find out who you write like? Go check out their website and share your results. They might just surprise you!

I write like
J. R. R. Tolkien

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!