Vanwa

Giu, I'm curious. Where did this come from? To my knowledge, and as written by the man himself, Tolkien absolutely abhored allegory of any kind. Have I missed something?!

I'm definitely no expert, believe me. But if you want to take a look at how I lay my reviews out, you're welcome to check out the link in my signature. The blog is quite handy really, it's allowing me to review all my books in one place where I can see them all, and then as I find the time I can post the reviews on the forum here. I just need to find the time

3+ for me. I'm rereading The Hobbit by Tolkien, rereading Complete Poe (who can be bothered to type the whole title?!), rereading The Silmarillion, taking my time with my Hitch Hiker's collection, which I adore by the way, reading Stephen King's Everything's Eventual collection of shorts, I've got two non-fictions about yoga on the go, and I'm just about holding off of rereading another couple of favourites until I finish at least one of the...quick count...seven I am already reading. Blimey...

Yay Katrina! You did it Now you can not spoil anything you like! Chapter 6 by the way. But am open to comment and discuss any chapter prior to that as and when required.

Well this will make Linda happy. You've forced me to add this to my wishlist. Just need some cash... Thanks for a fantastic review Pixie. By the way Pixie, you can post the blurb on the back of the book to hint at the plot, and you can always use spoiler tags if you're worried you might ruin the unfolding of a book with any remarks. For the spoiler tags, you can do the following: *Click post reply. *Write your post. *Look above the text box, there are two lines of icons. *On the second line there are these icons on the far right: # ABC *Highlight (click and drag) the text you want to hide with your cursor *Click It will look like this

Ooh Willoyd, in that case considering their ages you might like to try Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian. Our year 5 teacher read this to us at school, and to this day it remains one of my favourites. A young boy called Willie Beech is evacuated from London during WW2. He's a really shy and timid kid, who is put into the care of the miserable Tom Oakley. Against all odds, the two develop a strong friendship, and Tom discovers the reasons for the child's demeanor. It is a children's book, and one that has stayed with me for about 15 years. I've read it dozens of times and fall in love with it all over again everytime I pick it up. Not only that, but as the parent, you get the joy of reading it first to double-check it is suitable material! Win-win I say

I'm not sure of the rules with regards to getting another member to buy a book for you from another country, but we have a buy, sell and swap section within the forum which would require 10+ posts in order to access. This kind of thing is usually allowed only for regular members in order to protect the forum's users. You would need to make the ten required posts (non spam of course) in order to pose this question in the correct section. May I suggest you take a look around the forum, perhaps introduce yourself in the Introductions section of General Discussion, and perhaps get involved with some of the other threads as well.

It's nice and easy Katrina. If you write anything that will spoil the story for anyone, highlight with your cursor, i.e. click and drag over the text in question. While the text is highlighted, click the yellow button with an S in it. If you look above the text box you write replies in, you'll see two lines of icons. The second line down, on the right-hand side, you have: # ABC It's the button that does your spoiler tags.

Nope. No rules. Might I suggest though Katrina, with your approval of course, that we spoiler tag any giveaways from here on in, for those that might not have read it before, and who unknowingly stumble on this delightful thread? P.S. I hope you started already Katrina... I'm well on the way;)

Hmmm, LotR, LotF, these I can understand. Patterson? Magazines? I think you're doing exactly the right thing. He needs a thorough education, not an introduction to pure twaddle. He should be reading Shakespeare, Chaucer, Orwell, Dickens, Wordsworth... but then you know all this I'm angry on your behalf Katrina.

@ Katrina re finishing chapter 1, ready when you are. @ Univerze re the tone. It is very different Univerze. The tone of the Hobbit is very light and fluffy, it is actually a children's story. Tolkien's publishers asked for a sequel and he wrote Lord of the Rings. LotR was originally intended to also be for children, but as Tolkien was writing, it became darker and darker until he had to call it a story for adults.

Some of the novels I've read as an adult I would have liked to have seen on our school curriculum. Examples are 1984 by Orwell and Northern Lights (Golden Compass) by Phillip Pullman. I think novels with a controversial element are far more likely to encourage students. We didn't have summer reading lists, and the only required reading were exam texts. At GCSE (or end of high school exams) we studied the Child in Time by Ian McEwan, which at the time was one of the most dire books I had ever read. I have since come to appreciate it, although I still don't enjoy it. We studied the Crucible by Arthur Miller, and Macbeth. To be honest though, a lot of the problems with those classes were the two teachers I had. Neither could control the class, and subsequently not a whole lot of learning was done. We were then of course ill-prepared for our exams. Terrible at most other subjects, I was lucky that English has always been my strong point, and luckily I sailed through the exams with no notes, my poetry anthology had been destroyed by another student, so all my margin marks were no longer in existence. We had done no revision, had been taught no exam technique, no mock papers, nothing. The majority of lesson time was spent watching the tutors trying to convince the boys to take the classroom furniture off of the roof and put it back in the classroom. Our A level years though were much more organised. And the tutors actually cared about our results. Particularly our Eng Lit teacher. When we studied Chaucer, all discussions took place in Olde English dialect. When we studied Othello she took us to a play to help us appreciate Shakespeare as it was meant to be - on stage. We weren't given reading lists per se, but I asked for suggested reading for novels, plays, poetry and so on, and she sat down for what must have been quite a while, and penned me a comprehensive list. I don't think it's the reading material that influences our education so much as the attitude of the teachers. And just for the record, that comprehensive list lit the way to Stoppard, Osborne, Heller, Orwell, Poe, Austen, DH Lawrence, and many others I would have missed out on had she not been there to guide me.

Sorry for the delay in replying Raven. The answer is no. No self-containment at all. I know what it is you're looking for as an avid Shannara reader myself. And with Shannara you get the Sword trilogy, the Talismans quad, the Voyage trilogy and so on. But there is no such structure with WoT. Jordan wrote one looooooong story spread out over the currently published 12 books (one posthumous publication). And there are I believe another 2 to be completed, edited and published in the future from his notes. There is no conclusion per se to any of the books (at least up until book 9 which is where I left off). Each book leaves several cliffhangers with various different characters, and for the missing information you have to read the next book. And each book follows on directly from the one before. The character whom the entire series surrounds, Rand, is slowly developed over the first three or four books, and all events in subsequent books revolve around him. The books must be read in their entirety from book 1 through to the last. For the type of epic but self-contained read you are looking for in the fantasy genre, I know only of Brooks' Shannara. The good news however, is that the first publication from a new trilogy is due out later this year, titled Bearers of the Black Staff. Stephen King's Dark Tower series is 7 books long and that is a good read. Or you can pick up JV Jones. She's quite nifty as a writer (and nothing like Canavan whom I know you abhor). She's generally written only trilogies. I've only read one, which is the Book of Words, beginning with the Baker's Boy as book 1. I simply never got round to any other works of hers. But Words is a smashing series.

Pretty much Raven, yeah. None of them make sense without the one before it. It'd be like reading Two Towers without reading Fellowship of the Ring.

That is as I remember it. The publisher thought it unsuitable material for various reasons. And even on those attempts at getting it bundled with his other works, it was unfinished! The depths of his imagination were truly endless.

Mine means 'lost' in Quenya, one of JRR Tolkien's more developed languages.

In that case Katrina you might be interested to know that Tolkien started to write The Silmarillion and the history of Middle-earth in 1917, on which he continued his work even during the war, and was working on it a few weeks prior to his death in 1973. At least, 1917 is the earliest piece of writing his son Christopher Tolkien has found to date. The Silmarillion is magical because it is both his first and his last piece of work. It is truly a lifetime's work (spanning at least 56 years). And virtually everything Tolkien ever wrote has some founding in these early writings.

The theme Tolkien uses when approaching Gandalf's character is something which is present in almost all modern fantasy containing wizards. It seems that wizards must use people in order to carry out their work, and as such, the common phrase "the end justifies the means" is very relevant. In Tolkien's work, everything is fated to a degree. For instance, that Bilbo should be the one Gandalf chose for this particular journey was neccessary so that Frodo would later 'inherit' the ring for Lord of the Rings. I think that the homely setting in which The Hobbit begins is a tool used to magnify the discomfort Bilbo will feel later on during his adventure. Katrina, if you have read/ go on to read other works by Tolkien, such as The Silmarillion and The Unfinished Tales, I believe it is explained somewhere in some way that Gandalf only has so much power. He is not there to ensure that something happens, but rather to guide and assist those who can make it happen. He is only allowed to do so much. I can't remember where this is actually written though... The other item of importance is that Gandalf is far older and wiser than almost any in Middle-earth. 50 hobbit years to Gandalf must pass like hours to us. Of course none of this is actually relevant to The Hobbit itself, but it is interesting to delve into the history that Tolkien crafted to each of his creations. Chrissy, if you like the history and the longevity, the ancestry, and so on, you might find you'll enjoy Tolkien's other works if you haven't already read them.