The Lord of the Rings – a review and a confession

Among some fantasy readers, I had done something sacrilegious. Most were horrified when they discovered that although I had read almost every fantasy book on the planet, I had not bothered to touch the fantasy tale of all fantasy tales – The Lord of the Rings (LOTR). They would probably be in despair if they had found out that my first brush with LOTR when I was 13 ended with an exclamation of: “Man, this is boring!” And I made that conclusion just after reading the first page.

Then came the...