false 27508715 556704 899781 0261102435 9780261102439 7 <![CDATA[The Lord of the Rings]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1190649673m/899781.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1190649673s/899781.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/899781.The_Lord_of_the_Rings 4.49 81 The Lord of the Rings (encompassing The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King), and its charming precursor, The Hobbit. That many (if not most) fantasy works are in some way derivative of Tolkien is understood, but the influence of The Lord of the Rings is so universal that everybody from George Lucas to Led Zeppelin has appropriated it for one purpose or another.

Not just revolutionary because it was groundbreaking, The Lord of the Rings is timeless because it's the product of a truly top-shelf mind. Tolkien was a distinguished linguist and Oxford scholar of dead languages, with strong ideas about the importance of myth and story and a deep appreciation of nature. His epic, 10 years in the making, recounts the Great War of the Ring and the closing of Middle-Earth's Third Age, a time when magic begins to fade from the world and men rise to dominance. Tolkien carefully details this transition with tremendous skill and love, creating in The Lord of the Rings a universal and all-embracing tale, a justly celebrated classic. --Paul Hughes, Amazon.com

]]> 656983 4.17 516548 15741 1954 3 0 false Thu Jul 17 06:53:37 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 17 07:03:56 -0700 2008 the Lord of the Rings. The mother of all fantasy epics. The great tale of the war between light and darkness. Or a really heavy description of how a few small people managed to nearly botch the world because the really great ones were too scared to do something.

It's also educational...more...]]>