One of my Christmas traditions is buying myself a present, the Official Tolkien Calendar for the year ahead. As a massive fan of this author's works, I love marking a change of every month with a new piece of artwork from Middle-earth. With each new year comes a new set of stunning illustrations, thematically set around one of Tolkien's books, and it always feels like a lovingly crafted gift for gamers and fans to enjoy.
This year, Harper Collins has chosen to base the calendar around the three "Great Tales" of Middle-earth, which Tolkien wrote as precursors to the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. They form the basis of the later parts of The Silmarillion, and are better known by their colloquial names, The Children of Hurin, Beren and Luthien, and The Fall of Gondolin.
