Tolkien's Library wins Tolkien Award
20 April 2020
Tolkien's Library: An Annotated
Checklist by Oronzo Cilli (Luna Press Publishing) has won
Best Book at the Tolkien Society Awards 2020.
"A combination of circumstances means that we know more about
J.R.R. Tolkien than about almost any other author, from any period.
Nevertheless, in spite of all the efforts, there remains a certain
opacity about Tolkien, both professionally and personally.
As this book shows, there is a way to bridge that gap which has
not been previously attempted: a fact which makes this work by
Oronzo Cilli arguably the work with most potential for giving us a
truer understanding of Tolkien; a work which, besides its own
immediate effect, points the way for many further studies. What
Oronzo has done is, quite simply, to collect what is known about
the books Tolkien owned and read.
The best guide to an author's mind is through his books, and in
the work of Oronzo Cilli we have now the best and most valuable
guide to Tolkien's books. It is a devoted, enduring, and above all
inspirational work of scholarship, but not, as Oronzo knows, a
final one. It joins that very select group of works, the most
useful of all: a book we should keep, update, and write notes in
the margin of, for the rest of our lives."
Tom Shippey