*~Can't Stop Reading~* discussion

Okay I know that The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion hardly make one perfect series but they are essentially part of a series. The Silmarillion leads chronologically into The Hobbit, The Hobbit leads into The Lord of the Rings. And many argue that The Lord of the Rings is in itself a trilogy (although it was always to be one book). Either way who has enjoyed these books? I have because I read most of them as a child and found them amazing.

I'm reading through The Fellowship of the Ring right now. I've never read the books or seen the movies before, so I'm excited to see where the series goes. I just finished The Hobbit about a week ago though, which I had a lot of fun reading, so I'm not totally unfamiliar with Tolkien.

I hope you enjoy the world created by Tolkien. It's a grand story if it does move slow for some people. And they are all by far among my favourite books ever.

Though I enjoy Tolkein, I'm not a fanatic (sorry that isn't meant as criticism of anyone, I'm just trying to get across the fact that I like not LOVE the books). Without being a fanatic, is it worth trying to read The Silmarillion? I've heard it's not exactly an easy read - i.e. not a cohesive narrative.

If you don't love history or Tolkien's world then you probably would find The Silmarillion a hard sell. It does not have one flowing narrative as its more like a historical epic read.

I do love history (the real world sort) and I do find Tolkein's vision of Middle Earth interesting, but I had heard that the Silmarillion was for the hardened fanatic only, so I'll probably still give it a miss.

The Silmarillion is by far the most difficult of the books to read. This is mainly because the first 100 pages or so are essentially about the creation of middle earth and everything it, I have read it several times and never really understood it properly. After that it is a really good book and is no more difficult to read that the Lord of the Rings.

Im not trying to put you off the book because I thoroughly enjoyed reading it but you do have to battle to get through the first section.

On another Tolkien book that is little talked about but I found really good I would advise anyone who enjoyed the LOTR to read The Children of Hurin, this is set during the time of the Silmarillion but is a much easier read. (I think it may ever be mentioned during the Silmarillion and then later expanded into a book of its own but I'm not sure)

The Children of Hurin is a nice easy read and is set in the same time as the Silmarillion. You're right it is mentioned in The Silmarillion but the story is itself expanded and made nicer with the novel The Children of Hurin as it is.

Thank you Jonathan, its been a while since I read any Tolkien and couldn't remember the chronological order. There is a huge gap in time from the Silmarillion and the Hobbit and some of this gap may be covered in Unfinished Tales (which is a Chrispher Tolkien but from the notes of J.R.R Tolkien).
How did you get on with the initial chapters of the Silmarillion, I read them in my early teens and again a year or so later without much success. Are they worth re-reading or are they just really confusing anyway?

I read them in my later teens, just before I started getting into the classical style of writing again about seventeen and eighteen (now in other words). I found that the first few chapters dragged a little but the grand scope of the story overall made me think of it as Tolkien's best work in terms of how large an idea it is.

I saw the films before I read the books, as I was young and couldn't get into the books. I read The Hobbit a few years ago though. I started the Fellowship of the Ring at the start of December and finished it within a week because I couldn't put it down. Then I read The Two Towers within a week, I loved it even more than Fellowship. I'm reading The Return of the King now, I'm about 20% through the book but I'm roughly a third through the story (there's of a lot of appendices) :)

I've also got , and to read afterwards