Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues

Today I determined that after about a year of staying away from our local public library I'd drop in for a quick visit, mainly to browse their little used bookstore. I've found some good things for very reasonable prices at the place.

What I found there today was what I call a 'peripheral' Middle-earth book. It is not a work by Tolkien. It does not even examine Tolkien's work for its own sake, or the literary phenomenon that Tolkien is. Instead it studies the Middle-earth stories for their spiritual themes, as if a fine loaf of bread were being examined for its vitamin and mineral content.

While such an approach is possible (and I have several other books that show it has been done), I am not sure if it something Tolkien himself would have approved of. He once called such an approach like cutting up a ball in search of its bounce. I get the feeling that this book exists for the discussion of 'ordinary virtues', and Middle-earth is the sauce that helps them go down.

However, I will never not buy a Tolkien-related book that I do not have, especially if it only costs one dollar. I have long-ago sussed out the moral (even Christian) content,  and do not mind having it gone over again. “Hobbits delighted in such things, if they were accurate; they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions.” I even have hopes that it may reveal a fact or two that I never considered before, or show a connection that I never occurred to me.