The Lord of the Rings

JRR Tolkien

The back of the book says "The Book of the Century", I don't know if it is the best book I have ever read but it is definitely up there near the top of my list, I actually don't recall what else was on the book of the century list, have to try and track it down again and see if any of my other favorites made it on there.

There is also a quote from the Sunday times on the back of the copy I have that says "The English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and those that are going to read them" I spent quite some time in the going to club, but finally switched sides.

The above statement is flawed, this doesn't take into account people that can speak English but are illiterate.

I think originally I was put of by the description of the hobbit hole in the Hobbit, I borrowed it from the library on audio book because I had been told that I would most likely get sick of that part and contemplate throwing the book across the room. Since destroying a book is one of the few things I consider a sin I decided to get the audio tape.

Basically I contemplated fast forwarding that bit and decided maybe I was not ready for the Hobbit yet, I had also heard that The Lord of the Rings was far better anyhow, so Made up my mind to one day skip the hobbit entirely and read The Lord of the Rings.

In the mean time I went and say the Hobbit puppet show, I found it to be highly enjoyable and in the process picked up the basic story.

I always loved the cover art on the various copies of Lord of the Rings, and with the hype leading up to the release of the first movie all the lovely covers started disappearing being replaced with the shots from the movie. So I was spurred into action and purchased a copy of the all in one edition, with Gandalf on the cover. The other important thing that the movie covers were missing was runes.

Can't have a copy of Lord of the Rings and not have runes on the cover, runes are the main requirement.

This book has one of those highly strokeable covers, my favorite kind., the majority satin finish with bits of glossy embossed print for a different texture and to make parts of the cover stand out visually.

The book went on the pile like books tend to do, and the first movie was out on DVD by the time I got around to reading the novel. I loved the movie but I don't know if it was a good thing or not to see that before I started reading the book because I had a preconception of what the characters looked like and the descriptions of them became somewhat meaningless.

What this did mean however was that I got to play spot what was missing in the movie, and yes there were chunks missing, most notable Tom Bombadil and the fifth Hobbit.

What it also meant was that since the second two thirds of the novel was far more interesting, I couldn't wait for the second two movies, I was especially interested in all the sieges and the riders of Rohan.

There is really no point discussing the plot in this review since many people have already read it and those that haven't will soon know the story by watching the movies as they come out. The one comment I must make though is that if Peter Jackson and co wanted to be truly faithful to the novel/novels they should have made the first movie a musical, because it seemed like every second page they broke into song or other form of verse. Just my impression.

After reading through the appendicesI came to the conclusion that the history is very interesting, but the language section is heavy going with all the language buzzwords that I don't particularly understand , and the fact that I've allways done most of my reading on the train on the way to and from work subsequently I am half asleep most of the time.

I am glad that I have read it now, and was especially glad to have read the rest of the story before the second two movies came out.