Okay, I just started listening to
The Tolkien Professor podcast. I just finished with the intro podcast and it's already blowing my mind.
The podcast is by a professor of medieval literature who has been a huge Tolkien fan since he was a kid. It's essentially a series of lectures that examines the works of Tolkien, while keeping the author's intentions in mind. In other words, this is the next best thing to taking an actual college course on Tolkien.
Letters and other materials written by Tolkien are used to support the idea of approaching the works by focusing on the stories themselves, rather than taking biographical (author-centric) or allegorical (i.e. about World War 2) approach, or sifting through and dissecting them to find all the source materials: his stories were generally meant to evoke history and how it applies to who we are even today. He meant for us to take them in as a whole and enjoy them as the stories they are.
But don't take my word for it, listen at least to the introduction and hear it for yourself.
The Tolkien Professor on iTunes
What I also like about this guy is that he provides an interesting defense of fantasy as "real/serious" literature via Tolkien's views on the subject. So if you are a fan of fantasy or sci-fi, that in itself makes the introduction at least worth a listen.
Enjoy.