The Content Reader

Arne Zettersten is a Swedish lingvist with a special interest for ancient languages and dialects. He became a friend and colleague of Tolkien in the 1960s when they both worked with a collection of medieval manuscripts, the "Katherine Group". Their friendship continued until the death of Tolkien. In this book he tells the story of this friendship and gives an insight into the worlds of Tolkien. The book is rather academic, as maybe can be expected, but gives an overview of what Tolkien achieved during his life time. And it was a lot! For most people, like myself, he is known for the Lord of the Ring  books. The epic fantasy has been voted the greatest book of the 20th century in a reader's poll (by Britain's Channel 4 and the Waterstone's bookstore chain). Tolkien is the father of the modern fantasy books and it seems, that so far, nobody has been able to equal him in quality and popularity. Reading this book, you realise that for Tolkien, his books are just n...