I think there's room on the thread for reviews and discussion of all sorts. It's certainly a worthwhile criteria when reviewing to note whether a book is geared more towards casual Tolkien fans or more hardcore Tolkienophiles, but I think that still leaves plenty of room for discussion about these books by novices and experts alike.
For deeper discussion of any particular book, it would probably be better to break off and start a new thread, as has occured, for example, with the book Esty noted (one chapter only, in fact!) and davem's thread regarding Tolkien and the Great War.
I can see why BW has been reluctant to start a whole forum devoted to discussion of books about Tolkien and his work -- I'm not sure if enough people have read enough of the same books to generate that much discussion.
In the meantime, I think there's plenty of room for flexibility here.
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