I saw
The Lord of the Rings - A Reader's Companion in Waterstone's on Friday. Did I buy it? Of course... It's surprisingly out in paperback already, and is cheap too. It matches a new trilogy paperback set in white covers. There is also a new one volume in a nice 'gold' cover.
It would have been the perfect book for accompanying the CbC discussions, as it runs through each chapter, including appendices; though I must admit I've actually preferred
not having a scholarly tome around sometimes.
It may be very useful for going back to older discussions though, and will also be a help in any general threads which might come up. The book basically details all the changes in the new edition so you can pinpoint where the differences lie; but not only does it do this, it also considers any interesting points in each chapter, whether with notes from Tolkien's papers and other writings, or with excerpts from critical works.
It also has the
'Nomenclature' or translators' guide to names in LotR - this was written by Tolkien for translators to help them in their work and was available in an old edition of
Tolkien Compass (much sought after on e-bay), but not in the most recent edition. Another extra in the book is the missing part of the letter to Milton Waldman which was left out of
Letters.
Well worth buying.
I've also just got the More People's Guide To JRR Tolkien by TheOneRing.net - this looks interesting. It has Q&As with Verlyn Flieger and Karen Wynn Fonstad among others and the usual mix of articles.