The Colin Duriez biography of JRR Tolkien

Colin Duriez. JRR Tolkien: the making of a legend. 2012. pp 248. ISBN-10: 9780745955148; ISBN-13: 978-0745955148 

Because I have been reading Tolkien for so many decades, and therefore have felt the greatest impact from rather specialized and scholarly books such as Tom Shippey's The Road to Middle Earth, Verlyn Flieger's A Question of Time, and John Garth's Tolkien and The Great War - I have until recently rather tended to pass over the biographies aimed at a first-time reader; and it is this this area that author Colin Duriez excels. 

I have known that Duriez was a very knowledgeable and personable individual in the realms of 'Inklings studies', often appearing on TV and movie documentaries - and approved of him in a general sense, but without having made much of an effort to read his stuff! 

A few years ago I enjoyed his 2003 account of the friendship between Tolkien and Lewis; and last year read his 2015 book on The Inklings - which favourably surprised me by its usage of a different range and emphasis of sources than those used by Carpenter and Glyer. 

In other words, as well as providing the general and first-time reader a more accessible, briefer and more readable volume than the more 'academic' scholars - Duriez also provided a different and complementary account of the Inklings from the other books; which made it both enjoyable and well worth the attention of even someone like myself who is familiar with most of the primary sources.  

I therefore decided to try reading Duriez's biography of JRR Tolkien - taking advantage of the fact that it was available as an audiobook. 

Again, as with his Inklings, I found the work thoroughly enjoyable, and sufficiently different in its use of sources and angle of approach, to provide a fresh perspective. Duriez gives us what seems to me the best-integrated account available of Tolkien's childhood and early adult years, leading up to his major books - which this being the most foundational era of his life. 

The Duriez biography has an affectionate and enthusiastic basis, which raises it above the snipings and subversions of Humphrey Carpenter (Carpenter seems subtly designed to poison the mind of the reader against Tolkien). 

It was also refreshing that Duriez is an explicitly Christian writer, which I regard as essential for a rounded understanding of Tolkien and his significance; but one who refrains from pushing this at the reader, or 'using' Tolkien for apologetic purposes. 

Especially if you have never yet read a Tolkien biography; I would therefore recommend Duriez as the best first-time, initiatory Tolkien biography I have yet encountered.