Reading

[19_crows]

What I'm reading now: Nothing. I just finished J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter. I enjoyed it: a straightforward biography without literary criticism. I'd been curious about Tolkien and how he came to write his books, and it was a good answer.

What I'm going to read next: Not sure yet. I'd thought it would be C. S. Lewis: A Biography by A. N. Wilson, which I bought a while ago, but just now reading reviews, it seems to be universally panned. And, I'm not really that interested in Lewis. I also have Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis which looks more like the kind of lightweight biography I feel like reading now.

Or, I might read Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster by Harold Schechter, about Earle Leonard Nelson who began a killing spree in 1926 across the U.S. and Canada. He killed at least 22 women and then raped their dead bodies. That's the other book I put in my bag when I went to the sauna today. Escapist reading, you know.

Comments

[ithiliana]

You might enjoy, at some point, John Garth's TOLKIEN AND THE GREAT WAR (Garth makes use of the recently declassified information from the government on troop movements, and traces Tolkien's military experiences, embedding them in the work he was doing (the work covers a short but immensely formative part of Tolkien's life).

But there is not exactly literary criticism....more information on his work on the languages and poetry (he intended to be a poet first, not a novelist).

I can say the students we've assigned it to all love it! (spoilers in the linked review).

http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/booksabouttolkien/tandthegreatwar/description.htm

[19_crows]

Thanks, that sounds interesting. This book mentioned his partipation in the war and how many of his friends were killed, but didn't go into detail.

[ithiliana]

It is--and goes into great detail about the friendships that grew at school, and the losses during the war, and their impact on Tolkien!