Forthcoming in 2006

I lift my head above the parapet built of Tolkien books and my notes to apologise for my absence and to say that I've so far written (and typed up) just over 5500 of the 9000 words of my biographical analysis of Tolkien's time in Oxford. I hope to write the remainder tomorrow (barring further migraine activity !), and then to finish typing it on Tuesday. Then I will have to print it off and proof-read/edit it. Whilst it's been an absolutely fascinating project, it's also been a bit of a killer in that I've never had to produce so lengthy a work in such a short space of time (I had six months for my dissertation, which was the same length). Three and a half months is a short period in which to research, study and understand the adult life of anyone, let alone someone like Tolkien, for whom Oxford meant so much !

In the meantime, I've begun re-reading (purely for pleasure) Robin Hobb's three trilogies: the Farseer trilogy, the Liveships trilogy and the Tawny Man trilogy. I will review them by trilogy once I've read them. I also have an outstanding review for Kim Wilkin's excellent Giants of the Frost, which I borrowed from the library before Christmas and read last week. I've just discovered it's the second volume in the non-traditional "Europa Suite" trilogy. (It's non-traditional insofar as each volume can be read alone.) I will have to see if the library has the first volume, The Autumn Castle.

Also forthcoming in the next few weeks, will be reviews of Anthony Horowitz's Eagle Strike and Scorpia both of which feature further adventures of teen spy, Alex Rider, after I managed to pick up used copies of both this morning for less than the cost of either one of them new.

I've also got a large pile of Ursula Le Guin novels for which I hijacked the library just before the New Year. I've read all of Le Guin's Earthsea novels, but none of her SF books, and I've decided to redress the balance in the coming months.

In addition to all of the above, this week I finally received the copies of Dragonology, Wizardology and Egyptology which I won in the Guardian competition late last year.

When I'm not reading, post-Deadline Day, I shall be unashamedly re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time in over a year.

Of course, in addition to all of the above reading, I shall also be starting to research and read for my paper on western wizards (for which I will be re-reading the novels of Lynn Flewelling and Juliet E McKenna). Since the deadline for that is mid-October, I have 9 months in which to research and read, so I feel no qualms about taking a break after my Tolkien paper is done. My brain undoubtedly needs the rest !

Addendum: I forgot that today I picked up from the library the third and final part of Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy: Ptolemy's Gate (I've been waiting for this to turn up since before the book was published several months ago !) The front cover proudly announces "Over one million copies sold worldwide1" which is good news. Unfortunately I've only a dim recollection of what took place in the second book (The Golem's Eye, so I will have to get hold of a copy, and read the entire trilogy again (fortunately I have The Amulet of Samarkand on my shelves already). So look out for a review of the entire trilogy in a few weeks time also.