The Magical Worlds of Lord of the Rings: The Amazing Myths, Legends and Facts Behind the Masterpiece

David Colbert. Berkley Publishing Group, $13 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-425-18771-5

For Tolkien fans comes The Magical Worlds of the Lord of the Rings: The Amazing Myths, Legends, and Facts Behind the Masterpiece, by David Colbert. This illustrated unauthorized tie-in will mostly appeal to Tolkien neophytes with its short chapters headed by such questions as ""Why Is Frodo the Ring-bearer?"" and ""Was Gollum Ever Good?""

Featured Fiction Reviews

Maxim Loskutoff

Loskutoff’s powerful and suspenseful latest (after Come West and See) follows a heartbroken man who makes a fresh start in 1976 Montana, where he becomes neighbors with Ted Continue reading »

Mateo García Elizondo

García Elizondo pays homage to Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo in his stunning English-language debut about a heroin addict who arrives in a near-deserted Mexican village to die Continue reading »

Siegfried Kracauer

Translated into English for the first time by Skoggard, this brilliant WWI satire from German cultural critic Kraucauer (1889–1966; From Caligari to Hitler) was originally Continue reading »

Noyes’s bracing debut novel (after the collection Goodnight, Beautiful Women) charts the troubled history of a 19th-century Nordic family descended from a woman who survived a Continue reading »