R_of_G: I am not sure. I read LotR twice - the first time before I knew any English, so I read it in very good (as I understood later) Russian translation; the second time in English, because I had hoped the translation was poor, not good, and the original would be better; well, it wasn't. It's just not the kind of literature I can appreciate. I am not sure it is really "issues": as I said, I find the book boring, lacking viable character or any passable dialog, poorly written, and, generally, reflecting the author's inability to differ between collecting lore and writing novels. I think it is liked mostly by
"visual" readers, who can "see" what they read; also by those (I believe often they are one and the same people) who love fantasy as genre, so can disregard the weaknesses of the text. For people who love mostly reading
words - text - and appreciate first and foremost the purely verbal constituent (rather than the mythology created/collected by the author, descriptions, action etc) this particular novel is, I am afraid, hardly acceptable (and I have the misfortune to belong to that extremity). Most readers, are, I believe, in between, that is, if other constituents are sound, they can close their eyes on poor writing.
(as for audio books in general, I can't listen to them at all, I am sorry...
)