The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, by J.R.R. Tolkien (HarperCollins, £9.99 in UK)

Tolkien was of course an academic, a scholar in medieval literature, and these essays are in fact the texts of lectures given by him over the years. Two of them deal with the Anglo-Saxon poem Boewulf much dreaded by Eng. Lit. students, another with the narrative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; others again deal with linguistic matters and one is concerned with fairy-stories. All seven essays are easily readable and free from jargon, though the subjects are by nature rather specialised. Not for everybody.