Rating: 
Summary: Magik Stick
Review: Absolutely maginificant! Powerfully gripping til the very last page. Tolkien has a way of enchanting the reader far beyond any other authors. I'll tell it straight, THE BOOK WAS GREAT! You will never regret that you ever read it, pick up a copy today and join the adventure! The Hobbit is one classic novel that will live on generations to remember, don't miss out-
Rating: 
Summary: These are horrible books
Review: I have attempted to read these books but they are just so dull and boring that i havn't finished one yet. They are just overly decriptive!! Tolkein really could have summed up what his books were about in 100 pages... who needs 1000?? There is really no point in reading them and i discourage others from reading them too... If you want the story watch the movies.... Legolas is a wicked hot elf!!
Rating:
Summary: Superior Fantasy !
Review: Children in middle school and junior high school find these books fascinating and intriguing. I have listened to many oral book reports on Tolkien's works and can attest to their popularity. Excellent and well-written, at a level of vocabulary and developmental understanding, for youthful readers who continue to discover the "magic and beguiling attraction" in this set of fantasy books.
Evelyn Horan - teacher/author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl - Books One-Three
Rating:
Summary: the Lord of the Rings: the Hobbit
Review: The Lord of the Rings: the Hobbit, is a great book and is worth reading. I say this because the story takes place about 500 years ago with wizards and fire breathing dragons. The Hobbit is named Mr. Bilbo Baggins who is destined to become rich, heroic and famous.The next day he meets with a old wizard named Gandof, but anyway the next day 14 dwarves showed up unexpectedly for tea and beer right before they set off with Mr. Bilbo on thier dangerous journey to defeat the evil dragon Smaug, to gain in their wealth. This book is very intense, descriptive, and belivable.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm probably going to get hurt for this....
Review: I had heard about these books from most of my friends and so I decided to pick up the series myself. While the plot is very interesting, the writing style was hard for me to follow. At times I would get bored and at other times it would grab my attention for a while. It took me a year to read the "Fellowship of the Ring." I could never get into it. I would always get to never ending boring parts and put the book down and pick it up again a few weeks later. I had to force myself to finish the series. I had to force myself to read these books and I hate doing that, but these books rarely grabbed my attention. I'm going to try to read them again when I'm older and perhaps I'll think differently.
Rating:
Summary: Epic in the grandest and truest sense of the word.
Review: This epic work is, without a doubt, one of the greatest works of fiction ever birthed from the mind of man. The stories, while not allegorical, are highly symbolic of mankind's struggle against evil and tyranny.
I first read this series in high school, about ten years ago and my enjoyment of it has increased, not diminished. A truly wonderful tale that brings to life a world so vivid and inspired, you feel that if you just found the right garden path, you'd stumble into it.
Tolkien has given a great gift to the world, and even if you're not a great fan of fantasy, this should be required reading. The portrayal of all the characters is deep, with many sides to each personality represented. The sheer volume of places, languages, and societies is incredible. You really get a sense that this world lived and breathed in some remote, mythic past.
Do yourself a favor and read these wonderful books.
Rating:
Summary: Read the books that started it all!
Review: Before there was Dungeons and Dragons, before there were RPG video games (or RPG's for that matter), before the SCA, there was the Lord of the Rings. All of these wonderful spinoffs can be traced in one way or another to this fantastic book series. If you enjoyed the movies, there are many entire sections of the books which were skipped over or altered. These books are large and take many days to read for even the most voracious reader. A must read for any lover of fantasy fiction.
Rating:
Summary: 'The Greatest Fantasy Epic of Our Time!!'
Review: I got "The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Box Set" for my birthday, and wow, have I really enjoyed it! All my best friends except for one have read the whole set and I felt rather left out when they spoke about it with themselves. So, naturally, I was really looking forward to reading these books and I honestly can say that these books are DEFINENTLY my favorites! The songs in it were very interesting and the plot and everything was really good!***The Hobbit***
A really 'enchanting prelude to Lord of the Rings' about the respectable hobbit Bilbo Baggins and how he is hired by Gandalf and a band of dwarves to become a burglar...to recover treasure which the evil dragon Smaug stole years ago from the dwarves' ancestors of Lonely Mountain. In other words, he, the dwarves, and Gandalf has an exciting adventure which includes huge spiders, a dark creature named Golumn(here's where Bilbo finds the Ring of Power!), orcs, goblins, Wargs, many other worse unknown dangers, and finally, the confrontation of the dragon Smaug. My favorite character is Beorn the skin-changer, who helps the adventurers pretty much at Mirkwood Forest. I think this book is something you have to read before Lord of the Rings. It would make the Trilogy even more fun and easier to understand. ***The Fellowship of the Rings***
Bilbo is now 111 years old and the Ring is beginning to have its first effects on him. "I feel all thin, sort of stretched..." "I won't give my precious away, I tell you..." (Bilbo is about to leave his home and go for a long journey and to visit and stay with the Elves, but he doesn't want to leave his Ring behind, despite what Gandalf urges him to.) Gandalf, alarmed at this, makes him leave the Ring. The accursed Ring of Power which, if the evil Dark Lord finds it, would destroy all that was good in Middle-Earth, is now Frodo's and he now has a heavy burden: To go to Mordor, the very center of Sauron's dark kingdom, with a Fellowship of Nine and to throw the accursed Ring into Mount Doom. With dark, fearsome Ringwraiths, orcs, goblins, and other evil things following them, what would happen? ***The Two Towers***
The Fellowship is now scattered. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are trying to recue Merry and Pippen who were taken by orcs, and were also fighting against the evil wizard Saruman. Only Frodo and Sam are left with the orginal task of throwing the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, where it can only be unmade. Their guide was Golumn, but can they trust him? My favorite book in the Trilogy and it's very exciting. ***The Return of the King***
Frodo and Sam are nearing the end of their journey, but each step makes Frodo's burden heavier and heavier, until Frodo begins to lose hope in everything. Can the task be finished or will the Dark Lord Sauron capture the Ring and destroy Middle-Earth? Gondor is being attacked by overwhelming evil forces and evil could prevail. Unless Aragorn son of Arathorn returns from the Paths of Dead to help themc This book was also exciting and has a good ending, too! I loved reading the LOTR Trilogy and also The Hobbit. Ifm sure anyone would enjoy reading this! The movie was very interesting, also!
Rating: 
Summary: Great box, too bad about the books
Review: Fans of the Peter Jackson movies may enjoy having photos of the actors on the spines of the covers, but the books are printed on cheap paper in an eyestrain-inducing small font. The cover of one of my volumes was ripped when I took it out of the box. Treat yourself to a better edition that you can read and reread as much as these wonderful books deserve.
Rating: 
Summary: Classics
Review: With the movies now wildly popular, I decided to re-examine these old classics. What you get is a decidedly different feel from the movies. The on-screen versions of the stories have a much more "desperate" feel to them, with the quest as a desperate rush against evil, while the books are more of a journey and an adventure, with the interesting parts being the next person the group runs into, or the next adventure that takes place. I found both genres to be great, but they do have a different feel. People who watch the movie and decide to read the books afterwards will be shocked at the slower pace of the books (i.e. Bilbo not leaving for years after discovering that he has the Ring of Power as opposed the mad rush to escape in the movie) and the amount of song/poetry. How you feel about those "chants" will go a long way towards your opinion of the books. While they did get a little tedious after long bouts of reading, they are great in coloring the characters. Read the books at a slower pace so that you never find yourself scanning past them to continue the story - it will be worth the time to fully appreciate the art of these books. Keeping track of the characters is a full time job as some are introduced, leave the scene, and reappear hundreds of pages and even books later with no repeat introduction. The sometimes shocking similarities of the names of different characters (i.e. the two main villians being named "Sauron" and "Saruman") makes you wonder why Tolkein didn't look at other keys on his typewriter... I knocked a star off of the rating because the maps provided in the books are pretty worthless. Too many places that are referred to in stories do not appear on the maps, and a number of extraneous locales do. Those trying to visualize the journey using the map will find it very difficult and frustrating. But not enough to take away from the greatness of a "rediscovered" classic.
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