This book cover has my new favorite picture of JRR Tolkien

Yes, I am purchasing it for this reason alone.

You have to love the original MAP we all know - this is where he WORKED on things. I would pay money to know what books he kept at 'chair reading' level behind him.

It is a great picture - but don't you think the title is a bit...well..pretentious?

#3 - it sure enough is! But I want the picture. And who knows, maybe the writing is better than the title. :D

I'll look forward to your review!

Well, I did find a larger image on B&N. Won't help much. Nice shot, but I hate the way the light blue looks.

That picture isn't Tolkein: it's Liam Campbell. 8-)

omg

It is J.R.R. Tolkien.

Definitely the Professor:

I think that post #7 was meant as humor. Hence the smiley.

Either way, look at those ears!

Tolkein was easy to spot. He had hairy feet and stayed drunk a lot. 8-)

He does look quite hobbitty. The 'drunk a lot' I sincerely doubt. Pleasantly buzzed on occasion I might believe.

He does look decidedly hobbity! And mores the joy for it. (Can you tell I'm still reading A Dance with Dragons?)

>2 JPB:: I can't identify most of these books from blurred pictures of the spines, obviously, but I do suspect that the one on the top visible shelf about four from the far end (white and blue separated by a diagonal line) may be the German hardback edition of The Hobbit (Kleiner Hobbit und der Grosse Zauberer, 1957).

ETA: The striped volumes behind his elbow are probably a periodical, perhaps "The Use of English" (in which Penelope Lively published her negative assessment of the Narnia Chronicles in 1968).

Bottom shelf to the left is the original Swedish editions of LoTR. Visible are TTT (huge red sun/eye of Sauron top spine) and then RoTK; two issues of each. Illustrations by Rolf Lagerson.

The front of that edition of TTT -

Busifer, have you got them? We gave the set of first ed, first ptg, hardbacks in VG condition to a friend when he turned 50 five years ago. They were 4,500 SEK at the time -- roughly $650. I'd love the set myself, but haven't really been able to convince myself to spend that kind of money on books I' not going to read.

I have the set, in large format paperback. They were my father's, and are in atrocious condition. Believe it or not but when I was 10-11 yo I slept with them under my pillow, to make it easier to sneak read them by torch light under the cover, at night.
Can't believe my parents allowed it.

BTW I trashed a 1875 or '76 hand printed (by a relative, the first ever female typographer in Sweden) and illustrated possibly first edition of The Mysterious Island the same way.
Over that one my parents got somewhat mad. Somewhat ameliorated by their happiness over the fact that I was a voracious reader, but not much ;-)

I loved the translation when I was a kid, very old Swedish.

Although I'm sure your parents loved that you proved to be a voracious reader, I'm slightly surprised you're still alive.

Me to, in retrospect :-)