A Reader's Companion To The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings is a collection of essays by various writers including Isaac Asimov, C.S. Lewis, W.H. Auden, and Ursula K. Le Guin expressing their thoughts and opinions about J.R.R. Tolkien's works.
Seabiscuit is the 2001 biography of the Depression era racehorse, written by Laura Hillenbrand. When I was a child, I read an earlier biography of Seabiscuit, written in 1963 by Ralph Moody and entitled Come On, Seabiscuit!, so was quite interested to see the 2003 film based on Hillenbrand's book. I found it rather forgettable- though with some good moments- so never bothered to pick up the biography. A couple of years ago, however, I read Hillenbrand's Unbroken and it was excellent, so now I'm looking forward to her Seabiscuit.
The only Russian writers I've really read anything by are Nicolai Gogol and Ayn Rand, and I've decided that this year I'm going to branch out a little and try some of the big names in Russian literature, including Dostoyevsky. To that end, I picked up his 1869 book, The Idiot. We shall see how it goes.