5 books written by jrr tolkien biography

J. R. R. Tolkien was born 130 years ago on this day in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Based on sales figures alone, he may be the most significant author of the 20th century. But in Christian circles, Tolkien is so beloved that we’ve become dull to his genius. We now encounter his work diluted in Peter Jackson’s films and tired sermon illustrations. If you met the man, however, you’d encounter an eccentric genius whose strongly held ideas and interests would now alienate most.

But it’s this Tolkien—the curmudgeonly, humdrum, Latin mass–loving Catholic professor of dead Germanic languages—who wrote The Lord of the Rings. Whether you find Tolkien’s world engrossing or just don’t get the appeal, it’s worth asking how a man so far outside the mainstream of fashionable thought could craft an unprecedented and bizarre epic that captured the depth of human nobility and yearning. To answer that question, these five books will take you on a journey into Tolkien’s world and our deep past.