The Rough Guide to the Lord of the Rings

Rating:
Summary: Excellant little pocket LOTR 's book
Review: Don't let the size fool you, it is filled with tons of goodies and very interesting things regarding Lord of the Rings, kind of small type but readable, it is a book that any Tolkien lover needs to have in their library. Very enjoyable, a must!

Rating:
Summary: A great all round trivia book for LOTR fans
Review: I must admit I was apprehensive about buying this book sight unseen. So I went to my local Borders and boy am I glad I did. This well thought out guide tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the books, movies, memorabilia for sale, authors who have been inspired by Tolkien, even Tolkien himself. There is all kinds of LOTR trilogy trivia to make even the most grumpy dwarf smile. The front, back and inside covers are beautiful color photographs from the films. My only quibble is that even though the book is packed with photographs from the trilogy, they are all in black and white. I highly recommend this book to loyal LOTR fans everywhere.

Rating:
Summary: A great all round trivia book for LOTR fans
Review: I must admit I was apprehensive about buying this book sight unseen. So I went to my local Borders and boy am I glad I did. This well thought out guide tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the books, movies, memorabilia for sale, authors who have been inspired by Tolkien, even Tolkien himself. There is all kinds of LOTR trilogy trivia to make even the most grumpy dwarf smile. The front, back and inside covers are beautiful color photographs from the films. My only quibble is that even though the book is packed with photographs from the trilogy, they are all in black and white. I highly recommend this book to loyal LOTR fans everywhere.

Rating:
Summary: Rough Guide to Lord off the Rings
Review: I run Lord of the Rings Location Tours from Queenstown New Zealand,
so when I looked at the Movie location information in this book I found it sparse and inaccurate, as if the person who wrote it had never actually visited New Zealand. However the Book is somewhat redeemed by having alot of good information about Tolkien and other aspects of the Films.
As it says a 'Rough' Guide to the Lord of the Rings.

Rating:
Summary: A guide to the movie - NOT the book
Review: This is an overlong publicity book for the Lord of the Rings films, full of detailed chatter about the films and their making, and about Tolkien collectibles. As such, it's not bad. As a guide to Tolkien's book, however, it's another matter. The opening chapters on Tolkien and his work are actually pretty well-written and accurate. But even they are loaded with movie photos; and a chapter on the characters mixes facts from the book and films indiscriminately. A geography-ethnography chapter approaches David Day levels of plonky erroneousness. Most offensive is page 102, a list of parts of the book deemed skippable, especially any poetry that might hold up the action. If you want action, see the movie. A guide to the book should be written by someone capable of appreciating it.

Rating:
Summary: A Tolkien/LotR Overview
Review: This was a fun read. It had great perspective about the books and the movies and the politics and Tolkien's politics. It talks about the origins of the story, the books themselves, the movie triology, the characters, the context, the merchendise, the tourist possibilities, and much more. It also addresses the differences between the books and the movies, who said what or did what in which version and in some cases also addresses why those changes were made. The authors also have a dry sense of humor and it shows up in various places that make each comment from them a gem.

An easy read, I read a chapter a night right before bed. This book also had some very nice photographs and since it was printed on a real nice photo quality paper, they came out excellently.

The only bad thing about this book was that it was rushed and that lead to 2 problems for me. #1 Typos. Oh my. There were many especially in the earlier chapters. #2 in a rush to have this book out with the release (or near to it) of Return of the King, they had to address the 'maybe''s and the 'and then we'll see''s of the third movie. Maybe it's the completeist in me, but I would have MUCH rather they waited for the third movie to come out so that they could address it in the same manner they did the others.

A fun good book, I'd even buy a longer version of it, addressing all of the differences and bits of Tolkien and the myth and the stories and everything else that came from that was fascinating and I would love to see a fleshed out version of this pocket book into a full sized novel.