Monster is the Machine

Monster is the Machine

The Bovadium Fragments: Together with The Origin of Bovadium By J. R. R. Tolkien. William Morrow, 2025. Hardcover, 144 pages, $26.99. Reviewed by Ben Reinhard.  When Russell Kirk decried the automobile as “a mechanical Jacobin”—a revolutionary naturally destructive of...
The War for the Second Age

The War for the Second Age

The Fall of Númenor, And Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth By J. R. R. Tolkien. William Morrow, 2022. Hardcover, 320 pages, $40.00. Reviewed by Ben Reinhard. From childhood well into middle age, J. R. R. Tolkien was haunted by a recurring nightmare: a...
A Hope Beyond Our Sight

A Hope Beyond Our Sight

The Fall of Gondolin by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. Hardcover, 304 pages, $30. Reviewed by Ben Reinhard The Fall of Gondolin is, appropriately enough, the story of endings: the end of the mythical kingdom, to be...

A Great Story, Almost

Beren and Lúthien by J. R. R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. Hardcover, 288 pages, $30. Reviewed by Ben Reinhard Beren and Lúthien stands out among the posthumous Tolkien publications of the last decade or so. Unlike The...

A Marvelous Tale

Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin, 2014. Hardcover, 448 pages, $28. J. R. R. Tolkien’s newly published translation of Beowulf will be of interest to two overlapping groups: on the one hand,...