A Tolkien Bestiary

This maybe isn’t the best book to read cover to cover, since it’s laid out like a traditional encyclopedia, but man is it a great source of information about every aspect of Middle Earth! Obviously it doesn’t go into as much detail about the topics as the novels, but it gives solid outlines (longer than I expected in some cases) so that readers can easily cross reference events, places, groups of characters, etc while reading the novels. My only real complaint is that the author chose not to simplify Tolkien’s multi-naming conventions, so there are often multiple entries for a single group rather than just saying “see ____” and listing a main entry.

For as little fantasy as Tolkien wrote, his work struck like a sledgehammer where other authors' libraries hit like a flyswatter. His writing is dense and thorough, the work of a perfectionist, which is why there's not much out there that bears only his name, and not Christopher's. Nevertheless, many other authors or fans or devotees have generated multitudes of Tolkien guides, authorized and unauthorized, canonical and noncanonical, researched and questionable. You get the picture.

The merits of David Day's A Tolkien Bestiary are that it covers the big 3: Hobbit, LOTR, and Silmarillion. This book presents, in encyclopedic format complete with illustrations, references to all the flora, fauna, creatures, races, and kingdoms of Tolkien's show more Legendarium. Included, at no extra charge, are color plates depicting the history of Arda (the world that contains Middle Earth), from creation to the events in the end of the LOTR.

If you are a fan of Tolkien, I'm sure you will be able to find many useful pieces of information. And if you're an exceptional fan of Tolkien, I'm sure you can find an error or an omission. For me, this is just one of the many Tolkien reference books I keep along side those penned by him, as well as a few of those edited by his son and published posthumously. Definitely worth adding to your collection if third party reference material is your thing. show less

This is certainly not a book for more serious Tolkien scholars due to the many mistakes and liberties Day takes in his interpretation of Tolkien's world! If you are writing about Tolkien, the last thing you want to be called by the enthusiasts is "a davidday". Another problem is the reproduction of Day's text, with quite little editing, as myriad differing titles... As if it would be really worth buying more than one.

That being said, the book does have some nice illustrations for example by Viktor Ambrus (many of which, on the other hand, some not so artsy-oriented people may find boring, ugly or too much "out-of-the-box"). Day writes in easy-going and enjoyable way, if you can stomach the errors.

For many Finns the book ("Tolkienin show more maailma") holds some nostalgy as it was, back in the old days, quite the only available book about the world of Tolkien in Finnish. What's more, it is translated by Kersti Juva herself, the main translator of Tolkien in Finland, and due to "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" never having been translated to Finnish as a whole, it contains some unique translations (naukuhuulet, hirttoyrtti, vaakut, surisarvet...). show less

Day does an excellent job of explicating some of the intricacies of Tolkien's world, particularly the convoluted mythology of The Silmarillion. I'm not a big fan of the artwork in this book, though, which makes the whole thing only halfway successful for me.

A beautifully illustrated book with information on the fantasy beasts in the Tolkien books.

An encyclopaedia for confirmed Tolkien enthusiasts - includes references to Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales as well as the better known trilogy. Many beautiful illustrations (not Tolkien's, though).

A very important book in my Tolien-obsesed pre-teen. I used this book as a play guide.