2 Books Like In Defense of Sanity

This book is a deep dive into Tolkien's contributions to twentieth-century literature. It masterfully portrays his work as not only foundational to the modern fantasy genre but as a serious contribution to English-language literature regardless of genre. Of necessity, much of the work explores Tolkien's vast legendarium surrounding his fictional world of Middle-earth, but it also reviews his other writings, particularly Beowulf and his short stories and novellas, and shows the influences of his upbringing, his World War I military service, his religious faith, and his lifelong study of philology in the development of his writing. The result is a much more complex assessment than a simple review of Tolkien's most popular works and lends serious support to the contention that Tolkien may have been the single most influential author of the past century.

Baird's portrait of Queen Victoria and her life and times contains much material that is familiar, yet shatters many of the commonly held stereotypes regarding the Queen and the world she lived in. She was a woman of many contradictions: staid and yet passionate; accepting of some positions we would consider terribly chauvinistic, yet surprisingly feminist in others; often conventional, yet making use of both conventional and nonconventional means to navigate the political tensions of her time and to make herself a force to be reckoned with rather than a figurehead. Her influence on the tumultuous politics of the nineteenth century and the shaping of the modern form of England's constitutional monarchy cannot be overlooked, making her biography a must-read for those seeking to understand how Victoria not only defined an era in English history but influenced her nation's culture in ways that outlasted her own time.