Tolkien's world of Middle Earth introduces us to all kinds of creatures that are unfamiliar to us. Some we may have encountered in other stories -- elves, dwarves and goblins are found in many different fairy stories and fantasy novels, but hobbits, ents and balrogs are not. But even the ones whose names we know play a different role in Tolkien's stories. They have their own history, culture and languages.

This book is a kind of encyclopaedia of such creatures.

I've returned it to the library now, but I rather wish i had it for reference. Tolkien's books are full of allusions to tales, myths and legends of his world, but paging through other stories to find them can be quite challenging. Here they are all packed between the same covers.

Do you want to know the history of elves, and which ones saw the light of the two trees and which ones didn't? A quick lookup in this book will tell you.

Do you want to know about the relationship between Shelob and Ungoliant? It's all here.

And I found that just reading through it as if each entry was a chapter in a book helped me to recall some of the stories. It's a kind of mental map to the peoples and creatures of middle earth.

I just can't remember whether it said balrogs have wings or not. That's why I'd like my own copy.