Reddit reviews The Lord of the Rings

For movies, it's mostly sci-fi and horror... Alien(s), The Thing, The Evil Dead, Phantasm, etc. I also enjoy old film noir, stuff like The Third Man, The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity. Edit: Also "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" is a really damn great movie, with a strong film noir vibe, probably one of my favorites. Edit 2: Oh, and speaking of old movies, I have to mention Metropolis, Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Freaks - those are all awesome movies with a very surreal dreamlike atmosphere.

For literature, it's a mix. Lovecraft obviously ;-). I've started to read some Clark Ashton Smith lataly, which is fantastic so far. Read most of the Wheel of Time series when I was a teenager. Want to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy eventually, I have a really nice copy of it.

Just a note for clarification: FOTR, TTT, and ROTK are not actually three separate novels or even technically a trilogy; they weren't written or published as a series. It's one large novel consisting of six "books" that Tolkien was forced to publish in three parts for publication reasons, including post-war paper shortage. Some of the letters indicate that he was not quite happy with the way it came out and was perceived.

I'd definitely recommend, if you have not bought an edition of LOTR yet, buying a one-volume edition that includes both the preface and the appendices. Both, but especially the appendices, contain a goldmine of additional information, including what happened to characters after the end of the novel. The three-part editions that don't have them are seriously lacking in my opinion.

I have this edition (I hope, with the way Amazon treats editions and particularly mixes up the reviews, one can never be sure), and it's gorgeous. As you've seen the movies, the visual style of the illustrations will hopefully appeal to you; Alan Lee, who did them, was one of the two main visual artists they employed for the movies. The edition however pre-dates the movies.

>pre-movie art is my favorite.

Then I hope that you have this edition of LotR:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0395595118

I don't know exactly which Hobbit version you have, so can't say that it's a direct parallel, but I have this version of LotR that has illustrations by Alan Lee.

I personally really like this version, illustrated by Alan Lee. I have the three-volume series with the same illustrations, and of all the versions I've read since I first discovered The Hobbit in 1979, this has to be my favorite.

The 50th Anniversary Edition that you linked to is pretty sweet. My girlfriend's brother has it. If you bought that one, I doubt that you would regret it for a moment. It is fancy and looks pretty on the shelf. It's also nicely printed and bound and all of that important stuff.


A few months ago, however, I purchased this 1991 Alan Lee illustrated edition. It's a very handsome brown book beneath the kinda corny dust jacket. I read it this past spring - quite the workout for the forearms since it weighs like seven damn pounds.


TLDR: you can't miss. It really just depends on how much you might like illustrations. The Alan Lee works are gorgeous and I would say they add to the reading experience, but they were also used as reference works for the films so it's not like there's anything added visually that you haven't already seen.