Bored of the Rings is a brilliant work of parody. It does get nasty at the parts, but as the authors warn in the beginning, it's not really meant to hurt and everyone really should go read the original, too.
The book was originally published in 1969, and translated to Finnish in early 1970s (under title Loru Sorbusten Herrasta). I remember the first time I read it (somewhere in early 1990s) - Getting the book from the library was hard, and it was missing one page.
The book was about to disintegrate and it was definitely out of print. I had very very very hard time finding it: It just wasn't available anywhere...
But then came the end of 2001, and a new LotR movie came out. The publishers, probably hinted by the readers a bit, noticed what was notoriously missing from the flood of usual movie merchandise.
So, while the LotR:FotR movie was one of the art landmarks of last year, the new, fixed printing of this book was the art landmark of this year. The fans of the book had dreamed of reprint for decades...
Now it was again possible to walk into a bookstore and get it. My sister got a copy, and went to a vacation with it, so I have not yet re-read it. Instead, I got the English version of the book (that too was likely a bit difficult to find here). Hardback. Unbelieveable that a book like this is printed hardback.
It seems to me the original version is a little bit gentler book than the Finnish translation.
Understandably, the new printing has a "Not a major film!" comment on the cover! =)
The book has also inspired one role-playing game parody (see LMERP).
(More information to come as soon as I get both versions read... any day now, this is on my list, honest.)
randombit says There was also a 25th aniversary edition (which is the one I've got). I'm not sure how widely it was sold; I got my copy at an old used bookstore in Portland maybe 6 years ago.
(W4: Um, so, the original English version gets reprinted more often, what a surprise. *g* The copy I have says it's the first printing of the book in UK, though, so yes, Europe has been in the shadows more often...)