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22 | SUN LAKES LIFESTYLES | MARCH 2017 | After a wet start to 2017, we are having nice weather beginning to turn our thoughts to spring. January is of course when we make resolutions to set goals for the year, but I always look to spring to energize me, wake me up, and get me going on new projects, be it for myself, my home, my family, or my community. Our committee is full of great folks who want the libraries to be even better than they have been! So you may be seeing some changes soon. For all us book-lovers, mark your calendars now for the first book sale of 2017: Sat., March 11, from 9 am to 2 pm in the hardcover library. Great prices on hardbacks, paperbacks, DVDs! I wanted to give some extra attention to J.R.R. Tolkien as an author who was able to ignite the imaginations of millions of readers. After covering his childhood in January, young adulthood and war years in February, now onto his main writing years. Tolkien was busy at Leeds and had several career-advancing writings but he was offered a professorship (Professor of Anglo-Saxon) at Oxford in 1925, this included a fellowship at Pembroke College. He accepted. While at Pembroke, he wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings. He made a translation of Beowulf at that time but never published it. His son Eric edited it posthumously and it was published in 2014 to acclaim. A journal article and accompanying lecture did spread his critical views, which were counter to previous critiques, to his peers. Beowulf was an important source for Tolkien; this mythology can be seen throughout his middle earth universe. It was said that in lectures where Tolkien recited Beowulf, "The voice was the voice of Gandalf." After WWII he moved to Merton College, Oxford as Merton Professor of English Language and Literature. He remained in this post until his retirement in 1959. His books were quite popular by this time. He and Edith's family had four children, three boys then a girl. He was a devoted father to them including telling bedtime stories that he created, and kept adding characters to. Tolkien was somewhat put off by the sudden gusher of popularity of his books with the 60s counterculture. Edith died in 1971. Tolkien related frequently to his children and grandchildren how much he missed his wife, "… it's so strange to be alone after more than 50 years of marriage." How touching when the family relates their concern for each other's health, her pride in his fame as an author. Tolkien died on September 2, 1973. Do you read the "top ten" list of fiction or nonfiction books in the Sunday paper? So do we! More soon. Enjoy your spring reading. Library Committee