The Magical Worlds

Rating: Rings

January 13, 2003

By William C. MacKay

List Price: $13.00

Paperback

Berkley Books

---About the Author (from last page): "David Colbert is the author of The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter: a Treasury of Myths, Legends and Fascinating Facts also available from Berkley Books, as well as the Eyewitness history series. A graduate of Brown University, he studied anthropology and mythology but spent most of his time reading randomly in the library, which is pretty much what he still does."

Review by emplynx:

When Penguin Books offered me this book for free to review on the site, I accepted gratefully. I now understand why they wanted to get the word out. This is a wonderful & excellent book. It is full of questions such as Why is Frodo the Ring-bearer and Was Gollum ever good?. The questions are answered by Colbert not only using details from the books but explaining what may have inspired Tolkien write what he did.

Colbert is clearly very studied on Tolkien as well as Beowulf, Norse Mythology, and other literature that inspired Tolkien. Many of the pages include interesting facts and tidbits in the margins such as "'Tolkien' comes from the German word for 'Foolhardy.' Supposedly, it was given to the family after a daring military escapade by one of Tolkien's ancestors. Tolkien wasn't convinced the story was true, and didn't think the name described him.".
This excellent book written in it's easily read, Q/A format should be a companion to all people reading LotR. It is packed full of information about the Lord of the Rings and inspirations for the story of the rings.

Comments:

I Love The Lord of the Rings, the best fantacy books of all time, By what this site is saying i think i might be comfused but i don't know, is this book free or not?
Anyways, The Lord of the Rings will always rock!!
From a true J.R.R Tolkien fan
Cheyenne

Posted by: Cheyenne at May 15, 2003 09:45 PM

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