(cant believe i wrote this out for the forum to just delete it……)

just out of interest, which have you read?…and not part of the poll, but which was your favourite?

A the silmarillion

B the hobbit

C the fellowship of the ring

D the two towers

E the return of the king

F the unfinished tales

G any of the history series (eg the return of the shadow)

H the children of hurin

I the adventures of tom bombadil

thanks

A 16

B 21

C 21

D 21

E 21

F 13

G 6

H 10

I 6

mine are A B C D E F G I

my favourite by far is the fellowship

i also have the children of hurin but have yet to read it

B,C,D,E rich. Fellowship is my fave by a long way. Cheers

A, B, C, D and E like 10 years ago. My fovourite book is The Hobbit.

The classics only: B C D E

A B C D E F H. I like them all, though I recommend A to more people than the other ones.

thanks for voting all

rich

all of them: A B C D E F G H I

Not for a long time in some cases though, and I've only dipped a toe into the History of Middle-earth series.

A, B, C, D, E with LOTR trilogy being the best.

Oh crap, there's no more time to edit. haha

I liked Return of the King most, with The Fellowship of the Ring coming close.
The third book was the most exciting for me because it wrapped all the saga (obviously being the last book) in the most awesome way possible; while I wished Aragorn would die a warrior's death, him being alive made more sense in the end - I kind of like when stuff doesn't get all right in the end. I was kind of sad with the breakdown of the Fellowship and the Elves' depart, but the fact that Tolkien could make me feel something made me realize what a great literary art that was.
The First Book had my first sight of Boromir, who went to Rivendell due to a prophetic dream and having his life ended before it's time; yet, he quickly became my favorite character until I met Éowyn.

The creation of the Fellowship was nice too, but I quickly get bored with much explanations. While I appreciated the second book, it was the less exciting of the three, in my opinion. It had nice skirmishes and stuff, but it was almost easy to predict what would happen next. The return of Gandalf and the Westfold remaining was the best part of the book; I was seriously feeling doomed until he returned.

Everything of course.

Read all of them except G.

Hard to pick a fave from the LOTR three books, but if pushed would say Fellowship.

Found Silmarillion a tough read but may have to give it another go. Just read The Hobbit again (lost count of the number of times now) just to build up the anticipation for the film

thanks all- its good hearing your opinions

rich

B C D E

A F and I are on my "to read" list soon (I'm going back through the above first though)

A B C D E F G (all but about 3 of them) H…. no "I" yet…

As much as I love the "core" books… the History series just gave so much depth, it was baffling. I really loved The Children of Hurin, as it was a really good novelization of my favorite single tale from all of Tolkien's writings. Puts Greek and Shakespearean tragedies to shame…

the history series are heavy going (i am working ….slowly….through them) but what makes them worth it i think is that every chapter or so you will come across a discarded idea tolkien had, and be like…no way! he was going to have X to that??

rich

thanks for voting both

I suppose I ought to note that I have also read "Farmer Giles of Ham" and am in the process of reading several of his other short, non-Arda tales (Leaf by Niggle, Smith of Wootton Major, and Roverandom) which I have found to be entertaining so far.

I have read A BA C D E

ABCDEFHI

and "leaf by Niggle" and "On Fairy Stories" and his complete Letters. The last two were not as rough as one might think and extreemly entertaining.

Brownmantle said:

Also, if you get the chance, I highly reccomend the Tolkein course offered on iTunes. Corey Olson's essay on "How to read Tolkein and why" is particularly interesting.

B, C, D and E.

The others are in my plans to read them, but first i will re-read the 4 above and, probably (don't kill me rich) re-see the movies and see the upcoming Hobbit movie.

ABCDEFG for me.

Don't really care for children of Hurin since I think I've already read all that material in other places (or did Christopher added in some of yet another batch of unpublished work in that book?)

I haven't read all the HoMM yet, but as someone mentioned above, reading disregarded ideas are fun.

Imagine if Tolkien stuck with the idea of main character's name being Bungo Baggins.

Oh, I've also read Farmer Giles of Ham, but that is not Middle-earth-related. Besides, Bilbo's Last Song is a gem. I think this is my favourite.

thanks for voting all- ill update

rich

lol, I think I'm the only one who hasn't read any of the books.