First (Solicited) Book Review

Well, this was a peach . . . . Other day, I received a random email from a well-known Tolkienist entitled, "Book on Tolkien for JTR." Immediately I think, Whoa, he wants to review for Fafnir! Just a few days before, I posted a CfR for Fafnir that had five Tolkien books as among the available titles. I was surprised because established scholars don't usually engage in reviewing all that much . . . it's more something for motivated early career academics.All five of those books had been grabbed up within the first 24 hours, incidentally, and I was worried that I'd have to explain how his book had already been given away!

 Anyway, turns out that he was actually offering me a chance to review a book for Journal of Tolkien Research, which tickled me pink for all sorts of reasons. I've done tons of book reviews before, but usually after seeing a CfR or soliciting a reviews editor. This was the first time someone had solicited me. Moving on up, as George Jefferson would say.

 And we even had a nice e-mail exchange afterward. Apparently, we'll both be at the International Congress in Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo in a month and, as someone who's had almost two decades of experience going to this conference, he told me all sorts of cool things about the conference. 

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