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Michael D.C. Drout is a professor of English and director of the Center for the Study of the Medieval at Wheaton College. He specializes in Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature, science fiction and fantasy, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin, and is the author of How Tradition Works and Drout’s Quick and Easy Old English, among others. He lives in Dedham, Massachusetts.
Michael D. C. Drout combines his reader's journey through the major works of Tolkien with his personal journey as the son of a reading father and the reading father of a son. The result is an erudite and insightful discussion that shines new light on old stories.--Verlyn Flieger, author of Splintered Light Michael D. C. Drout has given us a rare, brave work at the crossroads of scholarship and memoir, where the tales we read and the tales we are in really do meet.--Thomas P. Hillman, author of Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring Drout is a rigorous and scrupulous guide...Drout offers ample rewards for the persevering reader...Drout writes movingly to the role of literature in life...As I closed The Tower and the Ruin, I felt some envy for the hundreds of students who have taken Drout's Tolkien classes. And I decided that this Christmas, I would finally get around to reading The Silmarillion.--Matthew Keeley ""The Boston Globe"" Mr. Drout is a fine scholar but his work sings because of its emotional depth... The Tower and the Ruin is thus, in a sense, only incidentally about Tolkien's creations. At its most compelling it's about how meaningful reading can be and how deeply it can convey a father's love for his children.--Konstantin Kakaes ""Wall Street Journal"" [A]n important addition to Tolkien studies and a welcome companion for Middle Earth's most loyal readers....The Tower and the Ruin ultimately reminds us that great literature serves us best when it is not merely written and read but shared.--Michael O'Donnell ""The American Scholar"" A splendid and original combination of sharp analysis and deeply felt emotional memoir. We know what makes Tolkien's fiction good, but what makes it qualitatively different, so that it feels like entering a world, not just reading another book? And what makes it such an effective resource for those experiencing grief and loss? Michael D. C. Drout answers both questions, powerfully, personally, convincingly. He shows how, more than any other work, The Lord of the Rings is not just a story. It's a life-changer.--Tom Shippey, author of The Road to Middle-earth
