Law of Blissful Ignorance
What you don't know will always hurt you.

Tolkien - the Lord of the Writing Ring
I just finished reading Lord of the Rings. For the second time. Last Saturday.
My God, it is an amazing book. I worship (I will definitely try) J. R. R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien.
I started it for the second time about December 15th. And one and a half months to read it is pretty fast, I must say, given that I had host of other engagements, apart from College, Saarang, Project, blogging and on and on.
Tolkien is one of the greatest author that I have ever seen, the most creative one, atleast. For this story, he has created an entirely new world, entirely new types of people (I have lost track of how many - but I think it is five minimum), new sets of languages for each of them, new dressing style... I could go on, but you get the idea. Then, there is the appendix for the book - a good 100 pages of that, where the author has described the characteristics, culture and history of the various, their languages, their calenders, family trees.. (I didnt go beyond that.)
The story itself has a very good plot and has one of the richest descriptive world that I have ever seen (or read). By the time I finished the book, I had this great longing to wander in the valley of the Anduin river, the vales of Rohan, the peaks of Misty Mountains, the flatlands of the Shire, the eaves of Fangorn and Lothlorien, the caves and tunnels of Moria and Helms Deep and sail on to the Gray Havens.
Apart from all this, the author and his son, have written a slew of other books that accompany or precede LOTR. Indeed, LOTR is but a small fraction of the stories of Middle Earth. There are, I think about 20 other books from the duo, dealing with the kingdoms and life of the various people. I definitely want to get my hands on them.
One of the best comments given in the back cover is this :
   "It is quite surprising, that one man, in the span of about 20 years, has created a writing of entire people."
For those who havent started it yet, my advice is first see the The Fellowship of the Ring. It gives you an orientation and faces to the various characters that you may encounter. Finish the book before seeing the second and third parts of the movie, as the second part seems to be very difficult to understand without the aid of having read the book.
Me, at present, waiting for the The Return of the King being the third part, scheduled, I think to be released in March. I sooo much want to see it in theatre that I dont want to see a VCD version of it - it will definitely spoil the effect.