Two new Tolkien books seem of possible interest to me, in the Amazon forward listings.
A Dictionary of Sources of Tolkien is from David Day, the prolific and unofficial encyclopaedist of Middle-earth. It looks interesting enough to sample the free 10% on Kindle, when it sees publication in a few days. After the abundant illustrations are subtracted it looks to have perhaps 350-pages of commentary on sources. At 544 pages in total, the 10% sample of the book should be enough to make a judgement on its usefulness and depth or not.
Also of note is a new French book La Terre du Milieu: Tolkien et la mythologie Germano-Scandinave (trans. Middle-earth: Tolkien and German-Scandinavian mythology). A translator is listed, which led me to discover that it’s a French edition of Rudolf Simek’s 2005 200-page German book Mittelerde: Tolkien und die germanische Mythologie. That led me to a preview of the Contents page in German on Google Books, which could then be run through Translate thus…
1. J.R.R. Tolkien: The medieval researcher as a novelist
Tolkien’s life and scientific career
The novelist
Tolkien and the Old Norse literature
The songs of the Edda and the prose Edda
Old Icelandic sagas
The Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus
2. Geography and geographic names of Middle-earth
Cosmography and Cartography
Tolkien’s World: Middle-earth
Otherworldly realms
Waste lands, wastes
Mountains and forests
Water and sweetbreads
Landscapes and parts of the country
3. Persons of Scandinavian origin
Dwarfs (dwarves) in the Edda and Tolkien
The Kings of the Rohirrim and their ancestors
The Hobbit families
Other influences from Old Norse
4. Odin’s appearance
Gandalf and Odin
Saruman and Odin
Sauron and Odin
Manwë and Odin
5. Natural mythological elements
Who is Tom Bombadil?
Ents and Entfrauen
Beorn, the Gesrairwandler
6. The friendly members of the lower mythology
Hobbits
Dwarfs (dwarves)
Elves
Wasa (Woses)
7. The menacing powers of lower mythology
Orcs
Goblins, Bilwig (goblins)
Uruk-hai
Trolls
Giants
Balrogs
8. Mythical animals, mythical animals and animal monsters
Dragon and Dragonhunt
Eagle
Wolves and wargs
Werewolves
Oliphants
9. Runic writings
The variants of Futhark
Tolkien’s creative approach to runes
Dwarf runes and moon runes
Cirth und Angerthas
Symbol-rind Zauberrunen
The runic inscriptions in Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
10. Motifs from the German mythology and heroes of legend
The One ring
The King in the Mountain
The Shadow Army
The Broken Sword
The worship of the gods without a temple
Zahi Nine
Revenants, “Funeral Items” (barrow-wights)
The Earendil myth
High Heights, Thrones (High Seats)
So, to pack that lot into just 200 pages makes it look like a broad survey. A quick search leads me to just one review online, in German. Turns out the author of the book is… “a professor of medieval German and Scandinavian literature at the University of Bonn”. The reviewer notes that… “Very commendable in this context is Simek’s effort to find out which Nordic literature was published and available in the United Kingdom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when Tolkien was a student and [lecturer?].” Our knowledge here is still somewhat limited (even now, with Tolkien’s Library in print), but the reviewer notes that Simek is not afraid to “speculate” on what Tolkien read and/or knew. The book looks like an interesting overview, but… it’s not in English.