Twenty-First-Century Tolkien

Fascinating... Wonderfully exhilarating... In a rousing finale, Groom suggests that Tolkien is exactly the writer we need at this particularly perilous moment, as we emerge, Hobbit-like, from our holes and try to imagine a new kind of life in this post-pandemic age. * Mail on Sunday * Each chapter displays a mastery of both the works in question - whether books or adaptations - and of the vast corpus of Tolkien scholarship. Narratives of literary production or of Hollywood bureaucratic processes rarely come as absorbing as Groom's... Illuminating... Groom's explorations of Tolkien's sources... are always provocative and often ingenious. * Literary Review * Groom's enthusiasm is hard to resist, and his garnering of folklore and customs that, for centuries, guided life through the changing seasons bulges with fascination. -- John Carey * Sunday Times on The Seasons * It's no exaggeration to say that this is a volume I have been waiting for all my life... This is a rich celebration of traditions and a plea for them not to be forgotten. -- Bel Mooney * Daily Mail on The Seasons * Wonderful and timely. -- Philip Hoare * Independent on The Seasons *