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The article is well-written; I quite like this phrasing in the lead: The book was well received by scholars, who however pointed out that it covered similar ground to his 1983 book The Road to Middle-earth, for a more general audience. However, only one review in the body makes this remark, making it a bit difficult to say scholars (in the plural) pointed it out. Do any of the others also say this? One option could be to add this review from David Bratman which makes a similar point.
Good idea, added Bratman.
There are quite a few single-sentence paragraphs, especially in the "popular" section; could some of them be merged?
Done.
The book was nominated for and won a few awards. I'd say the World Fantasy Award win is definitely notable enough to merit mention.
Good idea, mentioned several awards.
Are the figures in the image (Simon of Cyrene) referenced by Shippey? It may help to briefly mention what aspect of Tolkien's work he relates it to.
The image is just illustrating the discussion of Christianity; as the text says, Shippey mainly focuses on the Boethian/Manichean tension, and on Tolkien's hidden, non-allegorical use of Christianity.
The URL in ref #2 doesn't work. I think this is a general issue with academia.edu links, which only seem to work when you click on them from Google Scholar; suggest adding DOI (if available) or the magazine's ISSN.
Used the ResearchGate URL, and added ISSN.
Ref #8 appears to be from the Guardian, not the Observer.
The Guardian is the publisher, but it appeared on a Sunday in the Guardian's Sunday paper, The Observer. They share a website.
I have a small quibble with the "Literary" and "Popular" designations since two of the popular reviews are from scholars. I can't think of a better title, however, so I think it's ok.
I suppose we could say "Press" for "Popular" but I agree with you that it would be a doubtful improvement.
