The Fourth Review

New reviews continue to pop up, some of them in unlikely places. The latest one I found is in the Church Times, of all places, "the world's leading Anglican weekly newspaper", from the July 27th issue. As with Rilstone's review, it's linked with CT's THE CHILDREN OF HURIN, although most extraordinarily this one reviews my book first. Also unusual, and striking, is their reproduction of two nice, lesser-known illustrations for THE HOBBIT from my book. As for the book itself, they seem to like it well enough ("a mass of information, but often in a lively style"). Of particular note is their drawing attention to my comments on nomenclature, which I found a particularly tricky part to write: "On languages, which are important for the word-music of Tolkien's names, [Rateliff] is usually a careful consulter of experts rather than an expert himself." Fair enough. The CoH review that follows is appreciative and well worth checking out.
Here's the link: http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=42450

--John R.

Countdown: Two weeks to U.S. release