The title of this thread sums it up pretty mcuh.
There are quite a few unortharized LOTR fact books on the market sicnce the movies were released, taking advantage of the fandom craze that swept the world.

the unfortunate thing, is some of these books are, well, completly unsubsantiated.

A book I bought reacently 'The macical world of the lORD of THE RINGS a treasury of myths, legends and fainating facts' by David colbert
I saw it on sale for $4 so i figured, why not, might make a nice read.

It was an interesting read, i must admit, but some of the facts were so blantantly wrong.

One of the main facts that any LOTR fan would have picked up instantly was about elves.
'When elves die they are reborn into the same bodies with the same memories'
Did I miss something in reading the books or is this blantantly wrong?

Has anyone else come across a factual lotr book that also had errors like this in it?

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Yes there are also some books like this here in Germany. Since the movie came out there are so many things which show LotR in a wrong way and which Tolkien would not have liked to be released I guess..

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Well, actually, there IS a section in Morgoth's Ring (History of Middle Earth, Volume 10) that mentions rebirth with the elves...

If I remember correctly, it's not automatic that an elf gets to be reborn, Mandos weighs their case, so to speak, and chooses some to be reborn. Glorfindel is probably one of those, he is considered to be the same Glorfindel who fought with and killed a Balrog in the Silmarillion.

I should go re-read that bit, and come back with more substance. It's been a while.

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I think I read that book, but I'm not sure. I liked the illustrations, but some of the facts totally wrong.

I hate that. I got Middle Earth for Dummies (or something like that) for work on a project for English class and there were SO many errors! One of the things being that they kept saying Galadriel was a Queen. And that just irks me to no end.

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The problem with these books is that they put things down as if they were canon, or as if it is always true. I'm sure there are quite a few books out there with incorrect, or wavered facts. In fact, I have J.R.R. Tolkien: Architect of Middle-Earth by Daniel Grotta, a biography. There are errors and fallacies in it, including the date of Tolkien's death! For the most part I can see how the book is prone to errors for at the time of the author's compiling info for it he didn't have the Tolkien families co-operation or permission to info on Tolkien. Which led him to read newspaper articles, interview friends, and, of course, come to his own conclusions.

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http://www.arwen-undomiel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7521

You can actually get away with calling Galadriel a Queen. It's not far off the mark.

I've never come accross a false LOTR book. But then, you don't get many books on LOTR here (Thailand)

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The whole thing that bugs me, though, is that the book said nil about the last King and Queen of 'Lorien anyways!

And, a biography with false stuff? That's bad.

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Not so wrong... and possibly even correct (if very general)... possibly correct if the use of "reborn" here means something like reconstituted -- or that is, not actually being reborn again as Elf babies -- Tolkien finally abandoned his long held "reborn" idea in that sense. But Elves who were reincarnated were given an exact copy of the former body, as it would live in harmony with the spirit. Actual rebirth would result in a different body, and JRRT "realized" that that would be ungood for the continuing spirit.

Technically the Elvish terms are hroa and fea, instead of body and spirit, but anyway.

But in fairness to this book, while Tolkien did say that Galadriel was not a queen, or took no title of queen, in posthumously published texts, on in a letter, in The Lord of The Rings itself Gimli calls Galadriel a queen in The Road To Isengard "... tansclucent as the living hands of Queen Galadriel", and in The Road Goes Ever On (also published by Tolkien himself) it's described that Galadriel was "... the last survivor of the princes and queens who had led the revolting Noldor to exile in Middle-earth."

And while especially the latter, perhaps, maybe be interpreted as Galadriel being from a royal house, Christopher Tolkien did not alter the description as published in the constructed Silmarillion, from Of The Rings Of Power And The Third Age: "... in the land of Lorien where dwelt the Lady Galadriel. A queen she was of the woodland Elves, the wife of Celeborn of Doriath, yet she herself was of the Noldor..."

So while I'm aware that Tolkien said, more than once, that Nerwende Artanis Altariel wasn't a queen, I think we need to give some sources a bit of slack regarding this issue. I must admit that if I were charged with writing up an internal history of Middle-earth, I would have no great problem using the term, even though Of The Rings Of Power is also posthumously published, and a bit early-ish as far as external dating goes. In any case, if one were forced to pick a source or sources -- again for an internal look at Middle-earth -- there could be arguments for choosing various texts over others.

I guess I'm saying... it's not like this book has no argument to call Galadriel a queen in some context

Although why I'm defending a secondary source here... I don't know... nor why I'm responding to very old threads... besides the fun of delving into Tolkien, of course.