Top 10 Tuesday: Books I’d Purchase Now If I Had An Unlimited Giftcard

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

  Books I’d Buy Right This Second If Someone Handed Me a Fully Loaded Gift Card

I amended today’s topic because I thought it was wee bit long for a post title 😛 My list today focuses on books related to Tolkien and his works. I don’t usually purchase books without reading them first, which means this list would probably be full of books I’ve already read…that’s no fun! However, that rule doesn’t apply to books from my Tolkien shelf. I usually buy a book from that shelf when I run into some extra cash for books.

1. A Secret Vice by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Dimitra Fimi and Andrew Higgins –  Currently reading a copy borrowed from the library. A must have for my own library.
2. The Hobbit First Edition Facsimile by J.R.R. Tolkien – Including just this one preorder. I only heard of it yesterday and I must have it for my little collection! I often wondered if this would ever be published. 
3. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien – I think this is a staple for any Tolkien library…
4. Aragorn: The Undervalued Hero by Angela P. Nichols – I’d like to read this book but it’s not in any of the libraries I have access to. I haven’t seen much commentary about it so I’m not sure how good it actually is. But, Aragorn is a fascinating character and I’d love to read an in-depth exploration of a Tolkien character.
5. The Power of Tolkien’s Prose by Steven Walker – This one has been languishing on my wishlist for ages because it’s $120. I did a quick Google search to see if the price has gone down and I found the ebook for $25. Much better!
6. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Chronicles IV: Cloaks and Daggers by Daniel Falconer – I have all the other Hobbit movie chronicles. Somehow I haven’t been able to get a hold of this one. Although there are things I dislike about the trilogy, I appreciate the creative work that went into everything. I love the seeing the designs develop and reading commentary from people who worked on the films. 
7. The Keys of Middle-Earth: Discovering Medieval Literature Through the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien by Stuart Lee and Elizabeth Solopova – Something I’d like to do down the road is explore the medieval texts that influenced Tolkien. This book looks like a good start.
8. Tolkien and the Study of His Sources edited by Jason Fisher – Similar to above.
9. Tolkien: The Forest and the City edited by Helen Conrad-O’Brian and Gerard Hynes – This collection tackles a unique topic that I’m not quite sure how to summarize here. Here’s the description:
• Despite the popular and scholarly association of J.R.R. Tolkien with the natural world and literary world-building, Middle-earth as a landscape and a built environment has been relatively neglected as the background, the foreground, and the actor in his texts. This study presents new work by some of the finest scholars in Tolkien studies, as well as research from a number of emerging scholars, addressing this lacuna. The permeable interface between nature and culture, creation and sub-creation, within Tolkien’s world is of absolute importance to our understanding of Tolkien’s larger point in writing. From deforestation to the shape of a window, from Sam’s cooking gear to the origins of the party tree, this book surveys a world written to distill and intensify the realities of our own.
10. The First World War by John Keegan – Bonus book from my Tolkien-secondary shelf. These are books that aren’t directly connected to Tolkien, but may provide useful context for his writing. I’m interested in learning about WWI to better understand its affect on Tolkien and influence on his writing. 

 What books would you buy this instant if money wasn’t a question?