Rating: 
Summary: Tolkien has fun with Tolkien
Review: According to the inserts, these recordings were made before the "Lord of the Rings" books were even published. J.R.R. Tolkien performed these snippets for friends, in order to get their opinion of his new story as well as inspire himself to pursue publication. It is pretty fortunate that they were recorded. Of course, the recording quality of these informal chats is not top-notch, but I would expect nothing different. These are not professional recordings, but probably just someone with a recording machine in a living room while Tolkien performs. They are intimate, and a wonder to hear. Imagine if you could have been there, with Professor Tolkien trying to interest you in his funny little stories! Tolkien reads excerpts from several of his books, including "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings." He reads "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil," and sings a few of his songs. It is great fun to hear the "gollum" noise as he envisioned it, as well as the Elvish language spoken by it's author. I highly recommend these recordings. They are a window into the past.
Rating:
Summary: Tolkien has fun with Tolkien
Review: According to the inserts, these recordings were made before the "Lord of the Rings" books were even published. J.R.R. Tolkien performed these snippets for friends, in order to get their opinion of his new story as well as inspire himself to pursue publication. It is pretty fortunate that they were recorded. Of course, the recording quality of these informal chats is not top-notch, but I would expect nothing different. These are not professional recordings, but probably just someone with a recording machine in a living room while Tolkien performs. They are intimate, and a wonder to hear. Imagine if you could have been there, with Professor Tolkien trying to interest you in his funny little stories! Tolkien reads excerpts from several of his books, including "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings." He reads "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil," and sings a few of his songs. It is great fun to hear the "gollum" noise as he envisioned it, as well as the Elvish language spoken by it's author. I highly recommend these recordings. They are a window into the past.
Rating:
Summary: The Tolkien Audio Collection [abridged] a most marvlous expe
Review: Ever wanted to actually HEAR the voice of the author of "The Lord of the Rings" books reading some of his own wanderfull work? Well, whith this collection, you CAN!!! Yes, it's true, Tolkien reading his own writing!!! Among the many treasures contained in this fabulous four disk collection is a sample of Tolkien reading the two lines of writing on the ring, "one ring to rule them all..." No, he doesn't read it in the black speech, but I'd like to think that he DID record that. there's a pretty good sprinkling of Elvish here too: both spoken and sung. You will just love the first item in this collection. Here, Tolkien reads the passage about Golumb from "the Hobbit". It should be noted that He reads at a fairly fast rate so you may have to listen somewhat more closely than you might otherwise. This one will just keep you coming back again and again and again!!!!! You'll NEVER tire of it.
Rating:
Summary: The Tolkien Audio Collection [abridged] a most marvlous expe
Review: Ever wanted to actually HEAR the voice of the author of "The Lord of the Rings" books reading some of his own wanderfull work? Well, whith this collection, you CAN!!! Yes, it's true, Tolkien reading his own writing!!! Among the many treasures contained in this fabulous four disk collection is a sample of Tolkien reading the two lines of writing on the ring, "one ring to rule them all..." No, he doesn't read it in the black speech, but I'd like to think that he DID record that. there's a pretty good sprinkling of Elvish here too: both spoken and sung. You will just love the first item in this collection. Here, Tolkien reads the passage about Golumb from "the Hobbit". It should be noted that He reads at a fairly fast rate so you may have to listen somewhat more closely than you might otherwise. This one will just keep you coming back again and again and again!!!!! You'll NEVER tire of it.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic collection!
Review: For anyone who has fallen under the spell of J.R.R. Tolkien, I can't recommend these recordings enough. For the price of one CD, you get 4 in the set, all chock-full of Tolkien and his son Christopher reading selections from The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and The Silmarillion. The price of the CD alone is worth hearing Tolkien's 29-minutes-long reading of a piece of "Riddles in the Dark" from The Hobbit...absolutely marvelous! His Gollum voice is delicious! I highly recommend this CD package. You will enjoy it immensely.
Rating:
Summary: Truely magical!
Review: I absolutely love this group of CDs! Hearing Tolkien himself reading exerpts from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings make reading the stories themselves even more wonderful!
And when Christopher reads from The Silmarillion, it's just amazing, especially for someone who's been reading these stories since I was a little child.
I'd recommed these CDs to anyone who wanted ot listen to a true master of words.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing recordings!
Review: I was always wondering how it would be if the Tolkien himself read his books - and this is it! Of course these are just different parts of his books, but some recordings are really long (30 min or so, like Hobbit:"riddles in the dark"). This would be a great present to every Tolkien fan.
Rating: 
Summary: Great tapes for Tolkien fans
Review: If you want to give this as a present to a Tolkien fan then this is it, a collection of Tolkiens best books, (well, they are in my opinion they are) including the great joint work "The road goes ever on" with Donald Swann and J.R.R. Tolkien, but if you buy them for yourself and you have never read Tolkien books before beware, you will probably not be able to understand it. But as a gift it is great, myself a avid tolkien fan who has a large collection of Tolkien books will certainly look forward to adding this to my collection. 9 out of 10
Rating:
Summary: J. R. R. Tolkien is a great reader of his own work.
Review: It's too bad that Tolkien didn't get a change to read the whole of "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit". But, it's wonderful that these recordings survived for us to hear them since they were not professionally made and most were done before "Lord of the Rings" was even published, let alone popular. Also, also my thanks to who ever decided to put all these on CD. My LPs of these recordings are worn out.
Rating:
Summary: What a treat!
Review: It's too bad that Tolkien didn't get a change to read the whole of "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit". But, it's wonderful that these recordings survived for us to hear them since they were not professionally made and most were done before "Lord of the Rings" was even published, let alone popular. Also, also my thanks to who ever decided to put all these on CD. My LPs of these recordings are worn out.
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