About this title: This collection of stories, edited by Tolkien's son, features a number of pieces set prior to the events of THE HOBBIT and LORD OF THE RINGS, as well as several tales concurrent with those books (including Gandalf's version of the party at the Shire). Includes a massive index, maps, and commentary by Christopher Tolkien.
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Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
"I struggled through this in elementary school, and didn't really get it, which says much about its overall readability and straightforwardness. That aside, My preteen self decided to buck up and try again. Totally worth it for the burgeoning geek that was growing within me.
After having immersed myself in the world of Tolkien via "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings", this book cemented my fascination with Middle-Earth and it's complex mythology. I read it so long ago that I cannot even try to remember the bulk of the content - a sure sign that it's time to reread - but I certainly remember enjoying it and being disappointed when it was over."
"This is written more like a story-book than The Silmarillion, but it is not the best of Tolkien. The tales are more interesting here, and we see a lot more of Númenor, but I recommend it only to those hard-core Tolkien-fanatics."
"Some really interesting tales in this book with a huge amount of Middle Earth history and backstory. I loved the tale from Numenor "The Mariner's Wife" which was an absolutely fascinating insight into that island society.
The history of the wizards was also interesting, especially discovering that they were embodied Maiar from Valinor sent by the Valar to work against the evil of Sauron.
If you are interested in the history of Middle Earth, I would highly recommend reading this, but I would suggest reading the Silmarillion first."
"J.R.R. Tolkien's Unfinished Tales is a terrific book for diehard Tolkien fans, in particular, fans of The Lord of the Rings who have not yet read The Silmarillion. Ever wondered what were the exact events that caused Isildur to lose the One Ring? Or the origins of Wizards? Or what Middle-Earth was like during its First Age? Unfinished Tales helps to shed light on the complex creation of Middle-Earth and the many tales and legends that relate the events in its long and largely tumultuous history.
I found this book to be very interesting with a number of wonderful never before told tales from Tolkien's furiously hoarded safe box of writings such as "Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin", "The Disaster of The Gladden Fields" and my personal favorite "Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife". Even in their sometimes incomplete state, the archaic nature of the tales contained in this book add to the mystique that Tolkien discovered a trove of ancient manuscripts in some dark and remote cave recounting a lost and forgotten age of our world rather than merely conjuring it up out of his vast and unfettered imagination.
My only complaint about Unfinished Tales is that like the other history of Middle-Earth books, Tolkien's son and literary executor Christopher is too enamored of trivial events in his father's creation of Middle-Earth and seems too driven to point out every single nuance (and sometimes meaningless facts) about the many versions of the tales his father wrote before they came to their final, but incomplete forms. This makes for some rather unnecessarily confusing, if not, at times, dull reading.
Even so, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about how Tolkien created the world behind The Lord of the Rings and the many wondrous and previously unpublished tales that we could only guess had existed."
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