Rating: 
Summary: IT DOES NOT GET ANY BETTER.
Review: I cannot even begin to describe the sheer creativity of Tolkien. These aer the best books I have ever read, and i have read many, many books. Just got voted the #1 book of the century. No matter what age you are you will begin to feel for all the characters and immense yourself in their awesome world of tradition, magic, and heroics. Buy it or forever your soul be tainted.
Rating:
Summary: Loved Them !!!
Review: I loved these books; they were bought for me for Christmas, and I could not wait to read them { they were read within a week }; after finishing the novels, l was looking forward to seeing the movie trilogy. I also recommend reading "The Hobbit" before starting the "Lord of the Rings", as it provides background info, that can help you understand the books more; Definitely a great addition to anybody's library.
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Summary: A Master Work
Review: Conventional wisdom posits that it takes 100 years before it is safe to consider a book a "classic." It has only been about 50 years since The Lord of the Rings was published but I am confident that another is not needed before we can call this book a master work. Why do I say this? Because The Lord of the Rings deals with those perennial problems that all human beings have to deal with: the perils of ambition, the necessity of friendship, the need for courage and hope...among others. What makes this book a classic is that it transcends the genre of fantasy. Rather than being a fantasy book, it is a book about the perennial qustions of good and evil told through the medium of a fantasy story. If you have not read the Lord of the Rings, you should do so now.
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Summary: Beautiful Stories!!
Review: Two other books were published the same year as The Lord of the Rings; The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson and Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake. Both are excellent, and they are still read today. I can highyl recommend them. They are even in the same fantasy genre as Lord of the Rings, and both Anderson and Tolkien drew on the same nordic mythology. Why is then Lord of the Rings so outstandingly popular? Especially Gormenghast rivals LOTR in complexity and brilliance. Maybe the answer lies in the fact that Tolkien poured all of his soul in his books. These are not mere books; they *are* Tolkien. I have heard that Tolkien wrote to escape a dreary life - therefore he created the ultimate escape fantasy. I remember how hypnotised I was as a child reading them. Tolkien weaves such a rich tapestry that as in no other fantasy book have I ever felt that the author is describing a real world. The only book I can think about that comes close is Frank Herbert's Dune, but it is also obviously inspired by LOTR.
So, the combination of a will to create a fantasy world to escape to with the imagination and education to do it and a remarkable writing ability has created a literary masterpiece. I think that he created the modern fantasy genre with these books, and all role-playing games up until the mid-eighties were directly modelled on Middle-Earth.
However, I must add that I have some caveats: The moral of the books is rather primitve - static rural countryside/good, dynamic industrial society/bad. There is a total dualism; you are either with the good guys or with the bad guys (and gosh, are the bad guys BAD!). There has also been a lot of commercial exploitation of Tolkien; his family has published material that was never supposed to be published, and I fear that it is more driven by money than respect for his legacy.
Rating:
Summary: The Lord of the Rings
Review: My goodness - I am really surprised by some of the criticism of this boxed set!! I have read through all the books twice and I never even noticed a typo! Not one! (I am sure there are some typos, but I failed to see them.)
And I really like the movie photo covers! I like the connection it makes between the movies and books.
I bought this boxed set of paperbacks to be my "reading copies" of LOTR. I find I can get more "comfortable" with a paperback as opposed to a big hardback. Since they are small, they are easy to stick in my pocket/purse and take with me. I did not purchase this boxed set anticipating fancy maps and artwork! (For that, I will purchase the more expensive hardback editions.)
I think some of the reviewers had unrealistic expectations of this boxed set...
With all that said, I read these books after seeing the movies. I can understand why fans were concerned that the movies would not do the books justice. The books are so descriptive, imaginative, and full of brilliant detail. But I think Peter Jackson did an awsome job with the movies.
There is so "much" in these books, that you really must read them more than once to take it all in... I'll probably read them for the third time later this year.
Rating: 
Summary: Movie covers get worse and worse
Review: I adore the books and the movies, but every time the publisher releases a new set of paperbacks with movie cover art, their choice of covers get worse and worse. The current cover art for Fellowship of the Rings is particularly bad, since it features Frodo in Shelob's lair. They should have kept the cover art from the first release, when the first movie came out.
Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the Greatest Stories Ever Written...
Review: The LOTR Trilogy and The Hobbit are, as said, perhaps the greatest literary works ever written! The absolute genius of Tolkien blindingly shines through the pages of these epic novels. Regardless of the edition you have, the quality of his words are the same. Tolkien's exceedingly detailed descriptions of the places, people and creatures of Middle-Earth make the tales even more pleasing to read. His incredible imagery, symbolism and superb talent lend themselves invaluably to these terrific volumes of fantasy. Like a spider's web, Tolkien intricately and expertly weaves several subplots around the main plot of Frodo's quest to cast the One Ring into Mount Doom. Each member of the Fellowship is created and fully developed along with several other essential characters. I simply cannot rave enough about these books!
On a side note, some who have written reviews compare the novels to the fantastic films, both favorably and unfavorably. My suggestion is to keep them as separate as possible in your mind's eye. While, of course, acknowledging that Peter Jackson's film were spawned only because of Tolkien's brilliance, remember that no film could ever truly capture the essence that is Tolkien's LOTR because the stories were intended to come to life in the imaginations of their readers. Similarly, the theatrical editions of the LOTR trilogy have the advantage of a multi-million dollar budget and special effects teams to create the spectacular scenes.
I recommend these stories to anyone who can read. They are fantastic, incredible, amazing, epic and a must-read for all!
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Summary: Tradition heroism? Please actually read it!
Review: There is some truth in many complaints of The Lord of the Rings - it contains diversionary episodes that fail to forward the plot, it fails to fully develop some characters, it even falls short of the demands of style-mongers. Nevertheless, other critics make one wonder if they have actually read it - those complaining that he espouses some Conan-the-Barbarian ideal or " Wagnerian pomposity".
Tolkien goes out of his way to give us an example of this type of ideal and show us what he thinks of it - he portrays this very ideal in Boromir, the foolheaded character that blows his horn as he sets out on a secret mission because tradition commanded it and it made him feel all heroic inside. While brave and a great swordsman, he also falls easily into the temptation of the Ring and is dead before a third of the story is out. No - Tolkien's ideals are clearly otherwise: it is the small and weak and hierarchically ignored that are the true heroes of this novel. It is the Hobbits and the women that destroy the evil in the land. If critics are blind to a point even this central, then how are we to value their opinions?
In sum, while Tolkien's prose is admittedly not that of Jane Austen, Tolkien's remarkable gift for imagination is unequalled by any other writer modern or ancient - it is rivaled only by whole peoples. Read it.
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Summary: In the words of W.H. Auden and the author himself. . .
Review: H.H. Auden, considered one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th C., said that if someone didn't like LOTR he would never trust that person's literary judgement again.
J.R.R.T. said of those who found the work 'boring, trivial, or contemptable' that he didn't mind, as he had similar opinions of those people's works, or the sort of writing that they apparently preferred.
"The Hobbit" is the story of a well-to-do middle-aged bachelor who is pulled out of his narrow, smug, snug existance and is introduced to a larger world. Some of it is beautiful, some of it is horrible, but all of it is larger, bolder and more exciting than what he had known hitherto--and he finds that he's a lot braver and a lot cleverer than anyone (including he himself!) thought he was.
"The Lord of the Rings" is all about the uses, abuses, and corrupting effects of power, and the difference between domination and leadership; it also deals, the same as in "The Hobbit", although on a larger scale, with the inner strength that small, ordinary persons find within themselves when placed in extraordinary situations.
Also, J.R.R.T. was an environmentalist before it was fashionable.
If these themes are dull, what could be called exciting?
Rating: 
Summary: Great for the price.
Review: This is the best collection set I have found for LOTR without drying up your wallet. It doesn't cost near as much as the hard cover sets yet its quality is far better than some of the cheap paperback collections. The books are very durable and stylish (great cover art). The print is also small enough to keep the books compact yet not so tiny that you need a magnifying glass just to read. There is also a matching copy of "The Silmarillion". If you are looking to get a nice collection set of LOTR and The Hobbit without spending an arm and a leg, look no further.
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