From light romps to profound reads, a bumper crop of books tells us more about the maker of Middle-earth. For a warm portrait of the man and his work, see Clyde Kilby, Tolkien and the Silmarillion ...

First, a bit of movie history concerning films based on works by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. There was the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (“The Fellowship of the Ring,” “The Two Towers,” and “The Return ...