Customer Reviews
This is the way to buy "Lord of the Rings" all three parts at one time. 
2007-12-25
A single volume is more impressive; yet a little hard to wield. You may want to look up the reviews for the individual books (The Return of the King/the Two Towers/the Fellowship of the Ring.) Note one book or three that this is one story and not a trilogy. The work was artificially split for convenience. Also if you listen to a recorded version you can hear how to pronounce the names and places. Listening also allows time to digest the story as it progresses.
I read several notes on the works and find that it is smarter to read the work first; then if you want to you can compare your view with the notes. You don't want to stop and say "Oh a shadow. What can that mean?" Also even thought J. R. R. Tolkien is quite explicit in the beginning that this is not an allegory or even a reference to events in the real world, some people try to equate the RING with the BOMB.
There are several things that I found pleasing. One is that no one goes off and has any unrecorded adventures. This is each group especially in "The Two Towers" is completely tracked even though the events are parallel; Tolkien does not have to use flash backs to do so. I am also impressed with the fact that even though you see several references to good and evil, that every being in the story had a purpose and a destiny that was not strictly black and white. Gandalf reminds Frodo to spare Gollum as Bilbo did. At other times as in Bible stories evil intentions can bring about good situations. Well, enough philosophizing just read it and enjoy it on the story level. You may find that only drawback is that it ends too soon.
ryans review 
2007-12-06
This book was very entertaining but incredibly long. The plot line was intense and involving. It was a super page turner. Everybody should read this book and they will love it. Most people will enjoy this book. The plot is very easy to follow for most readers. If you enjoy action adventure books this one is for you. There is no lack of characters in this book. The amount of characters in this is nearly overwhelming but the detail in which they are portrayed is stunning. The detail in which the environment is written in is very good. The plot starts with a group of people called hobbits. These hobbits don't move around a lot. They like to stay by themselves. There are two hobbits that are very adventurous. These hobbits embark on a journey that takes them to all ends of the land called Middle earth. On their long journey they meet several groups of people. On Their journey they are accompanied by men, an elf, and a dwarf. These people all help the two hobbits meet their goal and they all grow very fond of each other. They all have many battles and travel long distances. At the end of this book there are many surprising plot twists. There are also some surprising aspects with the characters. If you like action adventure books I defiantly recommend this book to be in your home book collection.
A Pleasure 2007-11-29
Of course, I've always loved Lord of the Rings and J.R.R. Tolkien; I really enjoy the in-depth characters and intense plot. But it was even better as a single volume... the books that you love in less expensive and relatively durable binding. My family and I have read through this volume SEVERAL times, and apart from some slight creases in the spine, it's faring quite well.
For those of you that have not read LOTR but seen the movies, I'm sorry- I loved the movies, but they pale in comparison to the books... READ THEM. If you've neither seen the movies or read the books, and you actually enjoy books... READ THEM. If you don't really enjoy reading but you'd like to like reading and you have some spare time... READ THEM. Fantastic for almost everyone- my guess, though, is that anyone 10+ would understand them and enjoy them.
what more can you say? 2007-11-29
After so many people have reviewed this book in such a deservedly positive fashion, it's hard to add much that's new. I will say that it probably would have been difficult for Tolkien to get this book published today, or an editor might have chopped out a lot of the lavish detail in order to make it read a little more briskly. But I think it's better the way it is, and it's also a reflection of writing style from 50 years ago, to some degree. The following has probably already been said a zillion times: it sure seems like there is religious symbolism in the tremendously long journey involving the ring. I understand that Tolkien himself was quite religious. Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.
Truly Magnificient 2007-10-08
Tolkien has amazed me with his language and literature. The Lord of the Rings is just one of many examples of his superb ability as an author. The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, as well as The Histories of Middle Earth are all great books, but none can compare with the characterization, plot, and setting of the Lord of the Rings.
In this book, the use of characters and their roles in the overall effect of the book is outstanding. Not only the protagonists, but also the antagonists, make up the foundation of Tolkien's land known as Middle Earth. I was amazed at the characterization and the depth at which Tolkien displays each and every character. The book portrays the ideal story of good versus evil, the story of an innocent character shaped and developed by the trials of reality and the unknown world.
I am not one who usually gives five stars to a book, but this novel deserves more than five. I recommend this book to any reader in search for a story of adventure, action, and magic. Five stars, well earned.
This is what all authors should strive to be 2008-06-07
Admittedly, when I began this book (as a freshman in high school) I thought it was a bit too long.
But a good friend of mine had repeatedly recommended it to me and finally insisted that I read it (after reading The Hobbit, of course). So I pushed on through it, because even though I wasn't quite used to the wordy style of Tolkien, I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I couldn't have made a better choice.
The Fellowship of the Ring took me about two weeks, which makes me blush with shame to think about now that I can read it in about two days (if I am left relatively uninterrupted). Of course, I had foolishly not thought to grab copies of The Two Towers and The Return of the King at the same time, so I found myself making another trip to the library as soon as I could. A little put off by the cover illustration of Shelob - a giant spider - on the cover of The Two Towers, I was nevertheless determined to conquer my arachnophobia in the interest of the story. That one only took me one week or so, and then I promptly continued to The Return of the King. The last installment of the trilogy has always been my favorite, ever since that first read, and it was after I finished it that I fell in love with the story. Then I saw the Extended Editions of the films with the same friend who'd recommended the book to me and fell even more deeply in love, if that was possible. Now I, who had to ask my fellow Tolkienite what "FOTR" stood for, probably know more about the world of Middle-earth than she does. Many thanks to Tolkien for creating such a beautiful tale - my hope is to one day be a fraction as good a writer as he was.
A Classic in Every Way 2008-06-01
Full disclosure: I'm a fan that was brought in by the movies. Normally, I try to read a book before seeing it in movie form, but I was actually convinced not to in this case (more on that in a moment). Eventually, though, I watched the Peter Jackson film adaptations, loved them, and decided I'd like to get the full story. As a first-time LOTR reader, this edition looked like the best choice, as opposed to buying a fully-annotated or illustrated edition or the three parts individually (also, books with pictures from the film version on the cover is a pet peeve of mine, so I always avoid those editions). And the price of the 50th Anniversary edition is a true bargain.
Though this isn't the annotated edition, there's no shortage of notes here. A lengthy introduction, footnotes sprinkled throughout the volume, and a series of mostly interesting, at times overwhelming appendices supplement the epic story. The book itself is bound well, using good paper, and is surprisingly manageable for a 1000+ page volume.
But the real attraction here, of course, is the story itself. I had to agree with my friend who had stopped reading the book when she reached the section featuring Tom Bombadil. That character did not have the same substance as the others, and the frequent rhymes and poetry in those early chapters did not appeal to me. It drove my friend away from the book, but I continued on. Some of the poetry is pretty interesting, and I found that it was better in smaller doses, and in fact they do occur less frequently as the book goes on, achieving a better balance with the prose.
The story is divided first by volume (3, like the films), then by book (each volume has 2 books), then manageably-sized chapters. Of the six books into which Lord of the Rings is Divided, my favorites were Books III, IV, and VI. I felt that the emotions of the characters and the scope of the story were best realised in these sections, though there is certainly much to sink one's teeth into throughout the novel's entirety. One of the things I like best about the later Books is the way the characters, particularly the Hobbits, grow, the writing style becoming more emotionally real as the characters' conflicts become increasingly amplified.
It's been said that LOTR could be seen as a parable for life in and after World War I, though Tolkien denied it. Still, that seems very much to be the case in the book's final chapters. I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I'll say only that Frodo and Sam provide two very interesting perspectives on this idea.
(Also, though this is not a review of the films, I'd like to point out that I frequently could see images from the films in my mind while reading the book - not because it had tainted my experience of the novel, but because they had so accurately portrayed what had been written. This is a rare case of the films actually rewarding a comparison with the source text.)
Overall, I can say that this book proved itself to me as a true classic, not just in the fanstasy genre, but of classic literature. It works on countless levels, and has been a wonderfully rewarding experience. Someday, I hope to convince my friend to pick up the book where she left off - she doesn't know what she's missing!
Excellent! Simply Perfect! 2008-05-27
Hello.
This product is simply great. I am a huge fan of Lord of The Rings, and as a Fan I am very strict and critic on what I buy.
This book is simply perfect. It has the 3 books in one. The quality of the paper is excellent, it is not the normal paper and it is a type of glossy thin paper.
Also, the book includes additional references and content like Poems, songs, glossary ... and many other things that will make your experience with Lord of The Rings even better.
If you want to buy the books, do not buy them separate, this book will do more than just fulfill all your requirements.
I will completely recommend this book.
A perplexing and endlessly strange masterpiece 2008-04-14
Before anything else is said about it, it should be noted that in the context of serious 20th century fiction, 'The Lord of the Rings' is a really, really weird book. A lot of people, most notably literary reviewers, literary journalists, public intellectuals and academics, never miss a chance to pour scorn on the book and dismiss it as rubbish. It is, however, enormously popular, and has been so since it was first published in the years after the Second World War. Why does the book inspire such fondness, and such derision?
I myself have a chequered history with it. I first read it aged about 12, and loved it. I became at the time a fully-fledged Tolkien geek, immersing myself in the arcana of writing in Elvish and so on, which is more than most fans of the book do. I grew out of that phase, and forgot about the book. Later on, in my early 20s, I read it again - but this time, I had read and absorbed shelves-full of academic literary criticism of the then dominant Anglo-French persuasion, Marxism-lite with a heady pinch of deconstruction, and I despised the book for being wilfully archaic, not enough strong roles for women, surely there was more than a hint of racism in the depiction of the bad guys as coming from the East and South, the style was sheer fustian...and so on.
Aged 30 I read it again, because the movies were coming out and I wanted to watch them, and I was wondering why I'd liked the book in the first place. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed it. It seemed far more haunted, less triumphant, more ambiguous than I remembered. Subsequent readings have confirmed this assessment. The 'The Lord of the Rings' is a really weird book because, almost alone among serious mid-20th-century fiction in English, it is not at all interested in doing the things that the most critically acclaimed fiction of its era wanted to do. I doubt that any serious writer of Tolkien's level of education was more intellectually independent and single-mindedly focused on his own personal creative mission than he was. Most fiction writers are over-stuffed with ideas about things they want to do, which they put into practice with little or no concern about whether they have much to do with the story they want to tell. (I suppose the nec plus ultra would be a writer such as B.S. Johnson, who went as far as to proclaim that it didn't matter anymore what the story was, the only thing that was important was how it was told - and then defied his own pronouncement by frequently refusing to write about anything that hadn't actually happened to him or to someone he knew.) Tolkien, like very few writers of his generation, doggedly worked and worked until he knew exactly what he wanted to do, and then proceeded to do it.
'The Lord of the Rings' is a yarn. It is a good story; to a certain extent, you could retell it yourself and it would still retain much of its power to move and enthrall a listener. In that respect, it is unlike much great modern fiction. 'Ulysses' is one of my favourite novels of all time, but I am under no illusion that I could persuade someone how great it is by just recounting what happens in it in my own tone of voice.
'The Lord of the Rings' has been criticised as being racist; the usual charge is that blackness is associated with the bad guys. Also, it has been noted that some of the bad guys have crossed 'orcs' (a non-human species) with humans, and this is Not a Good Thing. Elsewhere, journalists have had simple-minded fun with the extremely tenuous links between Tolkien, philology and German romanticism on the one hand, and the Nazi party on the other. This needs to be said: the book is not racist in any recognisable way. Whiteness is equally associated in the book with sterility and barrenness, or else corruption and death. Many of the hobbits are recognised as being of mixed ethnic origin, and one of the main good guys is Elrond, who is of mixed Elf-Human parentage. So much for the charge of racism. What the book's left-wing critics have not noticed is that it is not racist but speciesist; the characters are always ready to reserve sympathy for men who have gone to the bad, but they never bat an eyelid before killing orcs, who are presented as being reasonably rational and sentient beings, albeit of a different species. But since orcs are a fictional species, does it matter? Animal rights campaigners might profit from looking at the book and the way it has been misinterpreted.
The most dismissive and least cogent criticism of the book has been that it glorifies vanquishing a conquered enemy, and that it's in some way an allegory of the second world war. This does not fit. The author once observed that if the book were an allegory of recent history, the Ring (for which read=atomic bomb) would have been used by the most powerful good guy against the main bad guy, and the majority of the population of Middle-Earth would end up falling under the hegemony of whoever had used the Ring in the first place - which, we may note, is exactly what happened in real life.
In the book, the Ring (which is a symbol of power and potentially unlimited hegemony) has to be destroyed, so that an unwinnable war can be averted. That is exactly what didn't happen in real life, which is why American soldiers are now dying in a senseless war in Iraq. 'The Lord of the Rings' is a classic novel because, for all its faults (it's long, it's oddly structured, it's sometimes long-winded, there aren't many interesting female characters, and perhaps most importantly it seems to exist a little too aside from the history that engendered it), it has a remarkable capacity to talk to successive generations about the things that worry and beset them - what am I doing here? What is my purpose? Am I really the person who should do this? Why keep going when it looks like I won't live to see the benefit of it all?
Tolkien knew what he was doing. This is his best book, far more gripping and readable than the interesting and sometimes gorgeous but basically sluggish and arcane 'Silmarillion', and readers who have disdained it in the past would do well to come off that high literary horse and give it a go. Not the least thing I got from reading Tolkien was a conviction that nobody can call her- or himself an educated reader without at least a bare acquaintance with Old English literature. Tolkien was saturated in the stuff, and it gives his work essential depth, richness and perspective. (The Riders of Rohan basically speak Old English, slightly modified.)
And in the end, it's perhaps the most haunting and saddest of fantasy novels. Tolkien knew about post-traumatic stress disorder before it was called that. He had served as an Army officer on the Somme in World War One, and knew first-hand the damage and grief that are caused by war, which is a lot more than many of his critics and some of his right-wing fans can say. This book respects his experience and transmutes it into something rich, strange and memorable. Isn't that what we who care about good writing normally call art?
Lord of the Rings Trilogy 2008-03-17
The book was in great shape. It was what I was looking for. It wasn't expensive. My boyfriend loved it and was it what he was looking for quite some time.
