by J. R. R. Tolkien

Adorable children’s story Tolkien wrote for his second son, or Boy Two, after he lost his beloved toy dog on the beach. A real dog is enchanted into a toy dog, and then goes on adventures, up on the moon and under the sea. In the end he is transformed back into a real dog and sent home to Boy Two.

by Madeline Miller

This is the story about a goddess who lives alone on a beautiful island where she dyes, spins, weaves, and casts spells.

No, just kidding. I wish it was. It’s an outlandish story with violence on almost every single page. Just one random violent thing after another.

by J. R. R. Tolkien

Small book with three distinct parts. First part is Tolkien expounding on “faerie stories” as a concept. It’s rather professorial. The second is a lovely short story called “Leaf by Niggle”. Tolkien has stated that he doesn’t like allegory. But this is a story about an artist who can’t ever complete his painting of a tree, because he wants each individual leaf to be beautiful and unique. Makes me think of someone – except, thank all our lucky stars, Tolkien DID complete LORD OF THE RINGS. It’s a tree which is beautiful above and beyond all its individual leaves being beautiful. Finally, the end of the book is a long poem in iambic pentameter. It’s a bit cryptic but I read it as being about the existence of God in nature and art.

by Nathaniel Ian Miller

I read this because I loved his second novel, RED DOG FARM. This is extremely different. I was hooked early on, but the hook lost me after 60 pages or so. Sven is an interesting character and goes off to the north to seek adventure, and makes a sympathetic friend. Then there’s a mining accident, and I lost the thread. He goes off further north to become a trapper. Eventually the story jumps the shark when his spunky niece shows up with her baby, yes in the wilds of the north, to stay with him. By the end I was actively disliking this meandering story. It didn’t seem to matter what happened, the story would just wander wherever it wanted.