lord of the ring

Volumes:
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King

Author J. R. R. Tolkien
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre High fantasy,
Adventure novel,
Heroic romance
Publisher Geo. Allen & Unwin
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)

The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by philologist J.R.R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien’s earlier, less complex children’s fantasy novel The Hobbit (1937), but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in stages between 1937 and 1949, much of it during World War II. Although generally known to readers as a trilogy, Tolkien initially intended it as one volume of a three volume set, with the other volumes to be The Silmarillion and Akallabêth; however, the other works were never fully completed and the publisher released in 1954-55 The Lord of the Rings as three books rather than one, for economic reasons. It has since been reprinted countless times and translated into many different languages, becoming one of the most popular and influential works in 20th-century literature.

Plot
he story begins in the Shire, as Frodo Baggins inherits the ring from Bilbo; both are unaware of its origins. Gandalf the Grey, who is Olórin of the race of the Maiar (In Unfinished Tales it is suggested that Gandalf is in fact Manwe, but that is not certain), learns some of the Ring’s history and advises Frodo to take the Ring away from the Shire. Frodo leaves with his loyal gardener, Samwise “Sam” Gamgee, and two cousins, Merry and Pippin, to help him. On their dangerous journey, they run into many difficulties and are pursued by the Ringwraiths. Various characters give aid along the way, including Tom Bombadil and a disguised Aragorn, Isildur’s heir and rightful king of Gondor. At Weathertop, Frodo is wounded by the Ringwraiths, but eventually they are unhorsed and forced to seek new disguises by the flood waters at the Ford of Bruinen, controlled by Elrond, master of Rivendell.

Frodo recovers under the care of Elrond. The Council of Elrond reveals much significant history and current news about Sauron and the Ring, including the escape of Gollum from Mirkwood and the corruption of the wizard Saruman. The council decides that the threat of Sauron is too great and the only course of action is to destroy the Ring in Mordor. Frodo volunteers to take the Ring, and a “Fellowship of the Ring” is chosen to accompany him.

The company is forced to travel through the Mines of Moria, where they are attacked by Orcs. Gandalf fights a Balrog of Morgoth and falls into a deep chasm. The others escape and take refuge in Lothlórien. With boats and gifts from the Lady Galadriel, the company then travel down the great River Anduin to the Amon Hen. There, Boromir, heir to the current Steward of Gondor, attempts to take the ring from Frodo, who then breaks from the Fellowship and continues the trek to Mordor accompanied only by Sam.

Saruman’s orcs attack, killing Boromir and kidnapping Merry and Pippin. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas pursue the Orcs and encounter Gandalf, who is now “Gandalf the White”. Merry and Pippin escape when the Orcs are slain by the Rohirrim and find themselves in Fangorn where they befriend the tree-like Ents. Gandalf travels with the others to rouse Théoden King of the Rohirrim to take a stand against Saruman’s armies at Helm’s Deep. At the subsequent Battle of Hornburg, Saruman’s armies are defeated.

Merry and Pippin motivate the Ents to destroy Saruman’s remaining forces at Isengard. Gandalf, Théoden and the others head to Isengard. Saruman refuses to see his error, and Gandalf strips Saruman of his rank and most of his power. Pippin looks into a seeing-stone Sauron used to communicate with Saruman — alerting Sauron to the presence of the hobbit. Gandalf takes Pippin to Gondor.

Frodo and Sam capture Gollum and convince him to guide them to Mordor. They travel a long and hard road, briefly aided by Boromir’s brother Faramir. Gollum betrays Frodo by leading him to the great spider Shelob in the tunnels of Cirith Ungol. Frodo is left unconscious by Shelob’s bite, but Sam fights her off using Sting and the vial of Ëarendil’s star — one of Galadriel’s gifts. Sam, believing Frodo to be dead, takes the Ring, and Frodo is carried to the tower of Cirith Ungol by Orcs.

Sauron begins his military assault upon Gondor, with the Witch-king of Angmar, greatest of the Ringwraiths, leading a huge army into battle against Gondor.

Gandalf arrives at Minas Tirith in Gondor with Pippin to alert the city of the impending attack. Pippin becomes one of the Guards of the Citadel of Minas Tirith, while Merry becomes esquire to the King of the Rohirrim. Aragorn takes Gimli and Legolas through the Paths of the Dead and raises an undead army, oath breakers who betrayed Gondor and Isildur; he uses these in turn to defeat the armies of the Corsairs of Umbar in southern Gondor, enabling the region’s forces to sail to the battle at Minas Tirith. Gandalf assists in the battles against the armies of Sauron, including the Siege of Minas Tirith. Denethor, Ruling Steward of Gondor, believing both his sons are dead loses hope and commits suicide. With the timely aid of Rohan’s cavalry and Aragorn’s reinforcements a significant portion of Sauron’s army is defeated. Théoden is slain, and the Witch-king of Angmar is slain by Théoden’s niece Éowyn and Merry.

Sauron retains innumerable forces in Mordor, and the main characters head to a climactic battle at the Black Gate, where the alliance of Gondor and Rohan fight desperately against Sauron’s armies, hoping to divert Sauron’s focus away from Mount Doom, which Frodo must reach in order to destroy the Ring.

Sam rescues Frodo from captivity. They make their way through Mordor and reach Mount Doom. At the edge of the Cracks of Doom in Samath Naur, the Ring proves too great for Frodo; and he claims it for himself. Gollum struggles with Frodo for the Ring, biting off Frodo’s finger and then falling into the fire. The Ring is destroyed. Sauron is banished from the world, his armies lose all morale, the Ringwraiths disintegrate, and the war ends.

Aragorn is crowned king of Gondor and marries Arwen, the daughter of Elrond. Saruman escapes his captivity in Orthanc and enslaves the Shire. The returning Hobbits overthrow him in The Battle of Bywater. Sam helps to restore order, and using his gifts from Galadriel he beautifies the land. Sam marries Rosie Cotton. Frodo remains wounded in body and spirit and, accompanied by Bilbo and Gandalf, sails west over the Sea to the Undying Lands, where he can find peace. Sam, Merry, and Pippin return home where Sam eventually becomes Mayor and is bestowed the role of Counsellor of the North-kingdom by Aragorn. After Rosie’s death Sam himself leaves behind the Red Book of Westmarch with his daughter and crosses over the sea, the last of the Ring bearers.

Characters
* Bilbo Baggins, the titular protagonist, a respectable, conservative hobbit. While travelling, Bilbo often refers to the contents of his larder at home and wishes he had more food. Until he finds the magic ring, he takes on tasks set out for him only reluctantly. Bilbo’s manner is informal and his speech colloquial and modern. The story follows an arc of Bilbo’s growing capability, independence of action and sense of community.
* Gandalf, an itinerant wizard who introduces Bilbo to a company of thirteen dwarves, later disappearing and re-appearing at key points in the story. While Gandalf is wise, his knowledge is limited, and he is out to serve his own purposes while only incidentally assisting the dwarves.
* Thorin Oakenshield, pompous head of the company of dwarves and heir to a dwarven kingdom under the Lonely Mountain. Thorin’s leadership is inept, often relying on Gandalf or Bilbo to get him out of trouble, but he proves himself a mighty warrior.
* Smaug, a dragon who long ago pillaged the dwarven kingdom of Thorin’s grandfather and sleeps upon the vast treasure. In many ways the Smaug episode reflects and references the dragon of Beowulf, and Tolkien uses the episode to put into practice some of the ground-breaking literary theories he had developed about the Anglo-Saxon poem and its portrayal of the dragon as having bestial intelligence rather than being of purely symbolic value.[7] Smaug the dragon and his golden hoard may be seen as a symbol of the traditional relationship between evil and metallurgy as collated in the depiction of Pandæmonium with its “Belched fire and rolling smoke” in Milton’s Paradise Lost.[8] Of all the characters, Smaug’s speech is the most modern, using idioms such as “Don’t let your imagination run away with you!”

The plot involves a host of other characters of varying importance, such as the twelve other dwarves of the company; two types of elves, both puckish and more serious warrior types; men (humans); trolls with “cockney” accents; cave-dwelling goblins; forest-dwelling giant spiders who can speak; immense and heroic eagles who also speak; evil wolves who are allied with the goblins; Elrond the sage; Gollum, a mysterious creature inhabiting an underground lake; Beorn, a man who can assume bear form; and Bard the Bowman, a heroic archer of Lake-town.
image and info source: wikipedia

bbc's top 100 all time best novels

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable and beautifully told story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Raised in the same household and sharing the same wet nurse, Amir and Hassan grow up in different worlds: Amir is the son of a prominent and wealthy man, while Hassan, the son of Amir’s father’s servant, is a Hazara — a shunned ethnic minority. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them. When Amir and his father flee the country for a new life in California, Amir thinks that he has escaped his past. And yet he cannot leave the memory of Hassan behind him.

The Kite Runner is a novel about friendship and betrayal, and about the price of loyalty. It is about the bonds between fathers and sons, and the power of fathers over sons — their love, their sacrifices, and their lies. Written against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, The Kite Runner describes the rich culture and beauty of a land in the process of being destroyed. But through the devastation, Khaled Hosseini offers hope: through the novel’s faith in the power of reading and storytelling, and in the possibilities he shows us for redemption.

Never Let Me Go (2005) is a novel by British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Booker Prize (an award Ishiguro had previously won in 1989 for The Remains of the Day), for the 2006 Arthur C. Clarke Award and for the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award. Time magazine named it the best fiction novel of 2005 and included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.[1] It also received an ALA Alex Award in 2006.

<strong>Plot Summery:</strong>
Kathy, Ruth and Tommy were pupils at Hailsham – an idyllic establishment situated deep in the English countryside. The children there were tenderly sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe they were special, and that their personal welfare was crucial. But for what reason were they really there? It is only years later that Kathy, now aged 31, finally allows herself to yield to the pull of memory. What unfolds is the haunting story of how Kathy, Ruth and Tommy, slowly come to face the truth about their seemingly happy childhoods – and about their futures. Never Let Me Go is a uniquely moving novel, charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of our lives.
<!–more–><strong>Plot Details:</strong>
The novel describes the childhood of a Kathy H., a young woman of 31, focusing at first on her youth at an unusual boarding school and eventually, her adult life. The story takes place in a dystopian Britain, in which human beings are cloned to provide donor organs for transplants. Kathy and her classmates have been created to be donors, though the adult Kathy is temporarily working as a “carer,” someone who supports and comforts donors as they are made to give up their organs and, eventually, submit to death. As in Ishiguro’s other works, the truth of the matter is made clear only gradually, via veiled but suggestive language and situations.

The novel is divided in three parts, chronicling the three phases of the lives of its main characters.

The first part is set at Hailsham, a boarding school where the children are brought up and educated. The teachers there mysteriously encourage the students to produce various forms of art. The best works are chosen by a woman known only as Madame and are said to be collected in a gallery. That Hailsham is not a normal school is also indicated by the emphasis on frequent medical checks and other odd details.

While the students of Hailsham are often cliquey, capricious and cruel, the three main characters — Ruth, Tommy, and Kathy — develop a stable friendship during this time. Kathy herself seems to have resigned herself to being an observer of other people, and the choices they make, instead of making her own choices, seemingly a naive and passive-aggressive type of “person”. She often takes the role of the peacemaker in the clique, especially between Tommy and Ruth. Tommy is an isolated boy who has difficulty in relating to others and is often the target of bullies, while Ruth is an extrovert with strong opinions.

In the second part, the characters, now young adults, move to the “Cottages”, residential complexes where they start to have contacts with the external world and they are relatively free to do what they want. A romantic relationship develops between Ruth and Tommy, while Kathy explores her sexuality but without forming any stable connections. While at the Cottages, they travel to Norfolk. The third part describes Tommy’s and Ruth’s becoming donors and Kathy’s becoming a carer. Kathy cares for Ruth and then, after Ruth “completes” (a euphemism for death), Kathy takes care of Tommy. Before her death, Ruth expresses regret over coming between Kathy and Tommy, and urges them to pursue a relationship with one another, and to seek to defer their donations based on their love. Encouraged by Ruth’s last wishes, Kathy and Tommy visit Madame, where they also meet their old headmistress, Miss Emily. During this visit, they learn why artistic production had always been emphasized at Hailsham. They also learn that deferring their donations is impossible, as this has been a rumour among clones for many years. The clones learn that Hailsham in general was an experiment, an effort to improve the conditions for clones and perhaps alter the attitudes of society, which prefers to view the clones merely as non-human sources of organs. The novel ends, after the death of Tommy, on a note of resignation, as Kathy accepts her own inevitable fate as a donor and her eventual “completion.” Although the novel does not end kindly, Ishiguro shows the reader the grim reality of Kathy’s life, and how ignorant acceptance can lead to downfall.