19. The Wittness

By:  Nora Roberts
Rated 4.5 Stars
Audio Book

I thought that this is probably the best book Nora Roberts has written in quite a while.  

I had to stifle the urge to nit pick a little since it is set in Arkansas and I didn't recognize a lot of the accents the reader affected.  But then the book is set in North West Arkansas and those people up there are a culture apart from the rest of the state.  For example, Wal Mart is based there as the Waltons come from that area as do the Duggars.  Enough said? :) 

Publisher Summary

Having had a traumatic experience twelve years prior, Abigail Lowery lives in a remote area in a house with high-tech security measures, but this only serves to further intrigue police chief Brooks Gleason, who aims to protect Abigail.

20. Tolkien and the Great War

by John Garth
 Rated 4 Stars
 Audio Book

Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth" by John Garth is not a full-scale biography of Tolkien, it is rather an examination of his experiences during World War One and the influence of those experiences upon the development of his writing and concepts behind Middle Earth.

 I thought this book was very interesting.  But while I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan I never got into any of his other books.  I tried the Similarian once but I'm just not enough of a fantasy reader to get into it.   I think that I found a lot to interest me in this book because I was not being required to actually really read any of his other stuff but got more of an overview.  Kind of an abridged version of a Readers Digest condensed book.

It was also interesting to me to see how his writing  evolved.  I  found it fascinating to follow him and his coterie of friends from boyhood through The Great War. Tolkien's relationships with a close-knit group of school-friends known as the "TCBS" -- The Tea Club and Barrovian Society, originating as a cluster of like-minded youths at King Edward's School in Birmingham, youths with lofty artistic ambitions and a belief that destiny would indeed carry them to artistic heights.

But Lord, for a group that was founded on humor and snappy repartee these young men certainly ended up taking themselves seriously.  But then WWI was pretty serious.

So to sum up my total reaction - While liked this book and I greatly admire him and his work, I will never be tempted to try to read any other of his books.