This holiday season, I am closing out the year with a countdown of my top ten posts of the year!

For 2019, the number two post was: The Best (and Worst) Books for Tolkien Biography

Prior to the release of Tolkien, the biopic of the author earlier this year, I took some time to make a list of biographical reading for anyone who would want to have some background about Tolkien before going to the film. I prefaced the list by sharing why I put it together:

I have seen several news stories along the lines of “books to read before seeing Tolkien” around the internet recently. While I applaud news outlets for encouraging reading tied to movies, several of these posts, though certainly not all, recommend reading Tolkien’s fantasy works instead of reading works about Tolkien.

This is one blog post where I would highly recommend reading the comments! Several scholars and critics have added their opinions on the works I have listed, and it makes the post even more useful!

Be sure to look at the list if you want the best resources available for Tolkien biography!

A special note: Thank you for following my blog and making it such a wonderful community! As you have probably heard by now, there are some big changes in store for the website, and I am so excited to share them with you! If you haven’t already, please take a minute to look at the brand new Tolkien Experience Podcast, or to revisit the original Tolkien Experience Project (which is still taking submissions)!