Lord of the Rings Return of the King/Two Towers/Fellowship of the Ring

Summary: "The first thing that one asks of an adventure story is that the adventure should be various and exciting; in this respect Mr. Tolkien's invention is unflagging, and, on the primitive level of wanting to know what happens next, 'The Fellowship of the Ring' is a least as good as 'The Thirty-Nine Steps'....Mr. Tolkien is fortunate in possessing an amazing gift for naming and a wonderfully exact eye for description....L...astly, if one is to take a tale of this kind seriously, one must feel that, however superficially unlike the world we live in its characters and events may be, it nevertheless holds up the mirror to the only nature we know, our own; in this, too, Mr Tolkien has succeeded superbly....No fiction I have read in the last five years has given me more joy than 'The Fellowship of the Ring.'" [read more]