Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
I actually brought this up before back on reddit - I was in the same boat as you, I tried reading the series again after reading lore entries in the video games and thinking it deserved another look, but balking before they even leave the shire (the first time I tried reading it was as a child, that time I stopped when they were dancing naked in the forest).
The advice is received then was to just read the silmarillion. It's good advice.
But advice that requires a great deal of discernment to know whether it's applicable.
The first two sections of the Silmarillion I found hard to get through. The rest of the Silmarillion I enjoyed much more. But it definitely requires careful reading—continual consulting of the maps and family trees found at the back of the book so as not to get lost between the many people and keep track of their relationships with one another. If this isn't regularly consulted, you will in all likelihood get lost.
The Silmarillion reads much more like a history textbook than does the Lord of the Rings (not a perfect comparison). The style is very different. It's probably comparable to Appendix A of Lord of the Rings, per my recollection. Both are great.
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