John Garth’s account of Tolkien’s wartime experiences makes for one of the best books about Tolkien, and the Inklings in general, yet written.The book brought me closer to Tolkien than any I have previously read. One reason is that the book tackles a relatively short period of time in close up – the period between Tolkien’s final years as a schoolboy in Birmingham and his miraculous escape, just a few short years later, from almost certain death in the horror of the trenches. Yet these are years packed with incident and filled with tragedy, and John Garth amasses a huge amount of detail – from letters and records from fellow T.C.B.S. members and other soldiers where Tolkien himself is silent – to offer a narrative that allows us to follow Tolkien and his closest friends, virtually every step of the way, as they arrive in France and take part in some of the most devastating battles in modern history, battles that clearly left an indelible impression on Tolkien’s imagination. It is a gripping and very moving story, and Garth puts you at ground level. I couldn’t put the book down.This is a book that will appeal to several different kinds of reader. First of all, anyone who is interested in the First World War will find it worth their while, even if they have no particular interest in Tolkien, because it gives an account not just of Tolkien’s war time experiences but also that of his friends (this is the story not of Tolkien alone but of his fellowship from Birmingham, the Tea Club Barrovian Society of G.B. Smith, Robert Gilson and Christopher Wiseman). Also, anyone interested in writing and the development of a great writer’s imagination will get something out of this – it is in the Somme, Garth demonstrates, that Tolkien begins to find his voice as a writer and where the seeds of his mythology are sown, even if he will not actually write much of it down until he is convalescent in Britain. Finally, of course, it will be of interest to the Tolkien fan interested in how Middle-earth began to take shape and how the trauma of the war impacted his writing.I was a little apprehensive that I’d get bogged down in the details of either the war or Tolkien’s legendarium (I am a fan of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings but have only read The Silmarillion once, several years ago). Thankfully John Garth does a superb job of explaining what everything means, or how things fit in the wider picture, right down to the meaning and relevance of particular poems and mythic materials, and the geography, strategy (if any such can be discerned in the pointless slaughter of the Somme) and outcome of particular battles. No doubt if you know about World War I or know Middle-earth inside out you will get even more out of the book but it is not necessary as Garth makes everything accessible.This is certainly a scholarly book in the sense that it is extremely well-researched and includes a large amount of contextual detail. But it is definitely for the serious general reader as well - it is a gripping and extremely moving account told with great skill and clarity. A great book – so good, in fact, that it would seem to be the last word on this aspect of Tolkien’s life; I can’t imagine anyone even trying to tackle the same subject again. I read it in two days straight and would recommend it wholeheartedly.