Book Mention: The History of Middle-Earth

– The Unofficial Guide to the Languages, People, and Books of Middle-Earth

Clocking in at a slim 70 pages, this is a mile-high overview of Tolkien's universe.  It covers the basics of the lingering mistrust among the races of Middle-Earth, enough of the history of men to see how things went badly wrong, a little bit on the various branches of hobbit-dom, why there are two major branches of the elves, those sorts of background.  This will emphatically not satisfy the hard-core scholar, but for the person who has watched Peter Jackson's film trilogy and wants to dig in a little deeper, it is just about right.  Even if you are well-steeped in the subject matter, it is still nice to see the grand sweep in course of an easy afternoon's read.

A word of warning however, this thing is completely spoiler-riffic.  If you haven't at least watched the movie (recommended) or read the books (recommended!), hold off on this one.  But yeah, for less than the price of a decent beer for the kindle version, you'll more than get your money's worth.