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<\/a><\/center><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nEver wonder just WHY you do what you do or why you are just where you are? (Myself, rarely, or at least never more than a half a dozen times a day.)
\nI managed to pass, thank you very much,\u00a0 on the what-will-I-do-when-I-grow-up angst when I was growing up (reserving my angst for other essential issues like pimples, girls and chin-ups), largely through lack of imagination on my part and absence of peer or parental pressure. I have managed not to strew too many milestones in my wake; the kind that bear witness to abrupt changes in course are not the variety that I tend to leave. The path trodden, albeit wayward and pedestrian, is relatively straight.
\nBut going where?
\nThat\u2019s another question that I never ask.
\nHow are you supposed to know the answer to a question like that?
\nIt\u2019s like getting in the car and driving somewhere in a hurry. Except for accidents, traffic jams or detours, you don\u2019t spend much time looking at the landscape. And I\u2019m particularly partial to landscapes.
\nThey\u2019re full of horizons other than the one you\u2019re aiming for. They contain people, for whom you are a fleeting speck of motion on their own horizons. And all those cars going the other way\u2026 in a hurry too, I suppose, just a few miles over the speed limit, intent on gaining a minute or two.
\nIs that any way to go through life?
\nKnowing where you are all the time, how close to your goal you\u2019re getting?
\nI\u2019d rather be lost. Somewhere along the way.
\nPerhaps that\u2019s why I\u2019m so fond of maps\u2026 speaking of which\u2026<\/p>\n
MAPS OF MIDDLE-EARTH:<\/p>\n
I do love maps. Thus, you can surely imagine my squeals of delight (well, manly, barytone and definitely masculine squeals) when I received a huge box of the new edition of The Maps of Tolkien\u2019s Middle-Earth, all reprinted and repackaged by HarperCollinsPublishers.
\nThey come in a sturdy slip-case, with a hole die-cut in the door of Bag End, so you can see the Shire on the back cover of one of the books inside. (You can also, depending on how you feel, put both books in differently, and choose to see Rivendell just a step outside Bilbo\u2019s front door. Or, if you are fond of surrealism there\u2019s also Gondolin and Cape Forostar to choose from.
\nGiven the bigger format, the maps have fewer folds, and no pesky booklet stuck in one corner. (The pesky booklets have been united in one lovely hardback, entirely separate from the maps themselves.)
\nMy only gripe, the maps still have folds, but what the heck, and my o-o-old pencil sketches that I did a-a-ages ago for the first maps look pretty\u2026 well\u2026 old. The paper is a bit on the thin side, but Brian\u2019s texts are, as always, brilliant.
\nLast but not least, there is a 4th map, of Numenor this time, which you can\u2019t get except in the boxed set.
\nMy advice: BUY IT! (Brian and I get royalties\u2026)<\/p>\n
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