The Return Of The King - J. R. R. Tolkien, 1955 ★★★★½

Closing the Ring

The last of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy, Return Of The King strikes me as one of the great payoff books in Western literature. It may not be a perfect novel, yet it rewards the investment paid by the reader of prior LOTR installments, deepens and broadens the insights one gleaned from reading the other books, and, unless you are a goblin or troll, sends you away happy.

The Two Towers – J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954 ★★★

The Murky Middle

Any great trilogy would seem to require a strong middle piece, something that deepens one’s engagement with the material being explored.

So I’m struck at how J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy manages to be so spell-binding despite the murky muddle of a middle piece that is The Two Towers.

The Fellowship Of The Ring – J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954 ★★★★

One Ring to Rule Them All

The first book in J. R. R. Tolkien's epic trilogy makes for a fine scene-setter and a bit of a puzzler. 

Enormously different in tone and content from his earlier novel set in Middle Earth, The Hobbit, The Fellowship Of The Ring challenges you to read closely and pay attention. It often rewards you for the effort, but make no mistake, this ain't no pleasant Misty Mountain hop.

The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien, 1937 ★★★★

A Tall Tale that Gets Bigger and Bigger

A quaint, bucolic story about a little fellow who meets with big adventures, The Hobbit is the kind of book one expects to read to a young person over the course of several lazy Sunday afternoons. Is anyone else surprised it became the foundation stone for one of modern culture's most popular mythologies?

What struck me recently reading The Hobbit was the small-ball stuff, its readability and charm. Yes, its greatest legacy by far lies with it being the forerunner of fantasy fiction's greatest trilogy, a trilogy that does much more than The Hobbit giving life and breadth to its fantasy setting of Middle Earth. But what strikes me is not how meticulous a myth-maker author J. R. R. Tolkien was, but how instinctual his pacing and craft seemed to be.