There are several books on the market about Peter Jackson and the making of the Middle Earth movies, but few have the heft of Ian Nathan's newly-released tome.
The Hobbit films get a supporting actor role - and King Kong has an important cameo.
There's a sense of the road having gone far ahead and Nathan is following it, if he can - every twist and turn of the labyrinthine business of making a blockbuster is pursued in exhaustive, sometimes exhausting, detail.
This is all fascinating if it is your kind of thing.
It helps that Nathan's book is recently enough published to capture the allegations of atrocious behaviour levelled at movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, although you get the feeling neither Weinstein brother would have come out well in this story regardless of that.
Sadly, it is not recent enough to bring in casting issues surrounding Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino, which is a shame as the chapters on casting offer some tantalising glimpses of who else might have starred in the movies - those late, breaking details add so much more to that story.
Nathan, former editor of Empire, is rightly regarded as one of the world's finest magazine writers on film.
A large non-fiction work is another beast entirely though, and it is all too easy to conceive Anything You Can Imagine as being a collection of shorter pieces cobbled together at a publisher's behest.
That is a touch frustrating in the early stages of the book, but it works a treat as it progresses.
While working for NZPA I broke the news Jackson was making Lord of the Rings, and covered the New Zealand premieres of all three films.
As Nathan jets in from afar to touch base with the movies for Empire, he picked up on the vast excitement in Wellington, and New Zealand, and captures a country ablaze with Rings fever.
One enduring memory of the film's press days is just how much fun cast and crew were having making the movies - Nathan captures this superbly, and brings the reader along for the ride.
That takes you to page 473 - the rest of the Middle Earth story is galloped through in under 100 pages, and it is hard to avoid the feeling this is something Nathan felt obliged to clipon rather than something he poured heart and soul into.
That's a minor quibble though, given the strength and depth of the preceding chapters.
Anything You Can Imagine shapes as being the go-to reference for how Peter Jackson and his team brought Middle Earth to the screen - in the political, financial and technical senses.
Despite its faults, it is often a cracking good read too - it might even make a good film itself one day. Although probably not an entire trilogy.
Mike Houlahan is an ODT health reporter
