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On my childhood bookshelf there sits a very well-thumbed copy of Fellowship, a dog-eared but otherwise tidy copy of the Two Towers, and a pristine edition of Return of the King which I somehow never quite made it to. I'm glad to have finally made it — it made all the difference to give myself permission to skip ahead a page here and there if I wasn't into that particular ballad or lengthy description of a rock face. I haven't got anything sophisticated to say about it but I very much appreciated my time in Middle-Earth. Tolkien's exploration of good and evil, power and virtue, is one that resonates more than I'd have liked it to.

Fellowship: 5/5 - maybe my favourite of the three Two Towers: 4/5 - the marshes are a real drag Return of the King: 5/5

A worthwhile reminder that the industrialised food system is not at all concerned with my health or best interests, and some fantastic interviews and ways of seeing things. Slight conspiracy theorist vibes and a few moments where it felt like the author was drawing unearned conclusions in pursuit of making a point, or drawing too heavily on metaphor and emotion (including an unironic and out of place "the Nazis loved UPF" segment). One example I remember was the chapter on emulsifiers. I was really curious about what the research said about soya lecithins because they are everywhere, and although the book mentioned them it then focused on two totally different old-school emulsifiers before saying "see!? emulsifiers can be harmful for your gut!".