While the Lord of the Rings is the most popular of Tolkien’s works, this is a book that he never intended to write. He was first and always a philologist, and it was languages that fascinated him. He began to make up and create languages as a teenager, and it was the urge to give these languages a people, a culture, and a history that drove him to create an entire mythology, which eventually, became The Silmarillion...

Ursula Le Guin is one of the most influential writers of the  20th century. She wrote twenty-three novels, twelve volumes of short stories, five collections of essays, eleven volumes of poetry, thirteen children’s books and four works of translation. She won numerous awards and honours, including multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, the National Book Award, and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters...