2022 - My Year of Tolkien; Re-reading Familiar Books and Discovering New Ones
I’ve been wanting to read as much of JRR Tolkien’s work as I possibly can for a number of years now.
When I’d read ‘The Silmarillion’ – I think for the 3rd time – in 2020, my intention had been to continue with the other Tolkien books I had.
But best laid plans and all that, plus my easily-distracted-magpie-like nature… It didn’t happen.
Anyway, this year I’ve decided to take the plunge and make 2022 my year of Tolkien.
Instead of doing what I usually do and start with ‘The Silmarillion’, I started, as is usually suggested, with ‘The Hobbit’, which I’ve already finished.
The plan is to then review the books as I finish them, so look out for a review of ‘The Hobbit’ in the next couple of weeks.
I’m now halfway through ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’, the first part of ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
The last time I read ‘The Hobbit’ was over 10 years ago, I’m sure, when I’d read it to the boys. And I would say ‘The Lord of the Rings’ was even further back than that, before Peter Jackson’s films came out.
A quick aside – I cannot believe it’s been 20 years since the release of ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’!
Back to the order of the books…
After ‘The Lord of the Rings’, including the appendices at the end of ‘The Return of the Kings’, I’ll re-read ‘The Silmarillion’, which will be no hardship at all as I do love it.
For now, I won’t be reading the 3 books that come under the heading, ‘The Great Tales’.
They’re the 3 major tales told in ‘The Silmarillion’, albeit comparatively briefly, and are ‘The Children of Hurin’, ‘Beren and Luthien’ and ‘The Fall of Gondolin’.
‘The Children of Hurin’
‘Beren and Luthien’
‘The Fall of Gondolin’
If I hadn’t read ‘The Silmarillion’ already, then I would read them but as I already know what happens, I’ll leave them for a later date.
The next book on my list is ‘Unfinished Tales’, a collection of stories and alternate narratives, which Tolkien hadn’t completed, but which were edited and finished by his son, the late, great Christopher Tolkien.
Then, I’ll be diving into the 12 volumes that comprise ‘The History of Middle-earth’.
Officially, there are 13 volumes in this series, but the 13th is a complete index of the previous 12 books.
The 12 books were compiled and edited by Christopher Tolkien and include hundreds of transcripts and revisions, making them the full study of the evolution of Tolkien’s legendarium, which were developed over almost 6 decades of his life – amazing!
The last book on my list is ‘The Letters of JRR Tolkien’, a collection of 354 selected letters written by Tolkien during his life.
Apart from letters to his family, friends and publishers, there are also letters that provide a lot of information about Middle-earth which, at the time of publication in 1981, could not be found anywhere else.
As I read these books, I’ll also be dipping into ‘The Atlas of Middle-earth’, a superb cartographic reference book, written by the late Karen Wynn Fonstad, an American author and cartographer.
It includes detailed maps of the lands described in ‘The Hobbit’, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Silmarillion’, which, with my visual aphantasia, I find incredibly helpful.
Also, Tolkien’s world undergoes changes in the 3 ages covered in these books – the world of ‘The Silmarillion’, set in the First Age, is very different to that of the Third Age, which we see in ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
So, that’s my reading list for 2022.
Having said that, I’m not going to get stressed if, for whatever reason, I’m not able to finish by the end of the year.
I’ll be giving it my best shot, though, as it’ll be fun!