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..back again, picking myself up, dusting off..and facing life..

I read The Hobbit first (actually my dad read it to me), then LotR, and most recently The Silmarillion.
I don't think not having read The Hobbit would have a significant impact on your experience of reading LotR, but if you have read it there are a few things you'd probably understand better.
One should definitely read LotR before the Sil because it (the Sil) provides a ton of great back story, but can be intimidating (or boring) to someone who isn't already a Tolkien fan.
I find it very interesting to go back to LotR after having read the Sil - i recognize various vague references to places and people in 1st age Beleriand.

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I started with The Hobbit, as I knew it was the prequel to the trilogy, and boy did it help in understand some of what was going on. Then I started the trilogy not too long after finishing The Hobbit. Lastly, I read The Silm, though now I wish I had read it first. It covered so many things that would have been helpful to know whilst reading both The Hobbit and the trilogy. The history and depth of it provided a better sense of what was going on, and why events were happening and taking place.

First I read the Hobbit and almost a year later I read LotR. After that I read the Silmarillion.


That's true. I understood LotR a lot better when I read it again, after having read the Sil.

When I first saw the FotR movie I had only read the Hobbit. It really helped me to understand the movie.

My dad read the Hobbit to me first, when I was about 8. Then 3 or 4 years later I read the trilogy. And I got hooked. A couple of years after I bought and read the Silmarillion. then I saw the films, and stopped being a fan, and became the obsessive I am now I recently bought the Book of Lost Tales 1&2 and am dipping in and out of those.

i actually found the ROTK first and tried reading that when i was like 12 lol and as you can imagin it just didnt make sence to me so i asked mum and she gave me the hobbit to read and i tried reading that but got sick of it...(hey i was 12 lol) so she got me the video lol and i finaly got the hang of it so i read the hobbit again...then the movies came out and i wanted to know more so i read them in order and then finnaly this year i picked up the Silmarillion and the unfinished tales...lol yer if theres any spelling or gramma mistakes yer...its late... lol

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I read them like this: Hobbit, LotR, Silmarillion, Poems and Stories, Unfinished Tales, Book of Lost Tales P. 1.

I think that's a good oreder for reading them, except I didn't like any of the books written by Christopher Tolklien. Too much commentary over too little story.

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I read The Hobbit first, when I was pretty young, and I loved it. I read it a million times. Back then, I didn't really even know about LOTR, and I definitely wasn't a fan. Some time passed, I discivered LOTR, I read the books, I fell in love with them. I like them better than The Hobbit, but I certainly think it's a good idea to start out with the Hobbit forst because it's simpler yet still interesting, and it provides some interesting and helpful background for LOTR. Then I read the Sil not too long ago. It was really interesting to meto see how everything, how Middle-earth began, and all of the beginnning stories that they sometimes refer to in LOTR. I now have Unfinished Tales and a couple of other Tolkien stories in one volume, which I plan on reading pretty soon. I think the order that I read them in was a good one, but what's really important is that people read them. Of course, reading the LOTR trilogy out of order would be terribly confusing, but apart from that, I don't think it matters very much.

I read The Hobbit first, then The Lord of the Rings, then I read a bit from both The War of the Ring and The Book of Lost Tales 2, then I read The Silmarillion, then The Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle Earth, then The Book of Lost Tales 1.

Now I'm waiting to get my hands on the History of Middle Earth series. I really want those books.

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I first read The Hobbit, then Lord of the Rings, and then Silmarillion. I'm glad read The Hobbit before Lord of the Rings, I think it made it easier for me to understand Middle-Earth, Gandalf, hobbits and most of all dwarfs!

And of course, you also get to know exactly how Bilbo got the ring.

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My order:
LotR
The Hobbit
Unfinished Tales
The Silmarillion
The Lost Road
Book of Lost Tales 1
Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Book of Lost Tales 2
Lays of Beleriand
Treason of Isengard
LotR: Reader's Companion
Morgoth's Ring (don't own)
War of the Jewels (don't own)
Shaping of Middle-earth

Wow, that's a lot of eading Tyrhael. That's so awesome that you've read that many Tolkien books.
I really want that book Morgoth's Ring. Apparently it gives some pretty good explanations of LOTR and Middle-earth. Anyone else here read it that would like to give me a review?

Well, first of all I saw FOTR in the cinema. Then I decided to read the whole LOTR trilogy. After that I read the Hobbit, and now I wish to read the Silmarillion.

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i read, in order and including books about tolkien...

the hobbit
the lord of the rings
the silmarillion
the unfinished tales
so you think you know lord of the rings? (pass on the author)
tolkien encyclopedia (david day)
defending middle earth (patrick curry)
tolkien: author of the century (tom shippey)
tales from the perilous realm
roverandom
tolkien: a biography (humphrey carpenter)

several of those i've read more than once, and i've also started the book of lost tales part 1.

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My parents started reading me the Hobbit when I was about seven or something, but they never really finished so two years later I gave up and read it myself. Then I read the Lord of the Rings when I was ten and the Silmarillion a year later. Recently I've tried to read the unfinished tales but I had to return it to the library before I was even close to being finished.

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Heh. I actually changed my sig. Wow.

"I'll tell you truly: I value my thought and work terribly, but in essence - think about it - this whole world of ours is just a bit of mildew that grew over a tiny planet. And we think we can have something great - thoughts, deeds! They're all grains of sand." - Levin

Two towers, fellowship of the Ring, Hobbit Return of the King, Silmarilion and i got the unfinished tales but didnt get a chance to read it and had to return it.