was just wondering.am thinking about buying the single volume version again (hardback).have yet to read it all the way through (got to the part where frodo is caught by the orks (after meeting that spider),and sam is going to rescue him. p.s it might be a while as i have 3 books that i haven’t yet read (biographies of john peel,slash and keith richards)

3 times before I was 16 I think…..

not sure I’d want it as a single volume. I remember The Two Towers being hard work at times.

managed to get a third of the way through the third book before i ran out of steam.
While the books were ground breaking and full of great ideas, they are quite frankly, pretty badly written by today’s standards. Very clunky, slow moving, self-indulgant and dont get me started on the songs!

Gave up when I was 16 half way through The Two Towers. Tom Bombadil’s poems were the final straw.

Read em all, but the nonny nonny ho obllocks gets tiresome after a while

i have read it through in one sitting, and compared to other Tolkien books it isn’t that bad. The copy i have now is one of the specials which have the pretty pictures.

Read the Hobbit and The Silmarillion about thirty years ago, decided that they were ridiculous poop and have never touched them since.

I’ve read LotR and The Hobbit a couple of times. I own the Silmarillion but I’ve never opened it.

I made a start on re-reading The Hobbit as an adult(*) recently, and was surprised at how twee and kiddie-fied it is. It’s all ‘little Bilbo in his little stripey pants,’ I couldn’t read more than a couple of chapters.

(* – relatively speaking)

Read it several times as a kid and still dip into the good bits now and again as an adult,purely from nostalgia.

I’ve heard it said that if LOtR is your favourite book at 14 then that is fine but if it is still your favourite at 40 something is wrong.

I probably read it 3 times before age 25 and I read it again after a 25 year gap.

It’s not quite literature but it is a well written work. Skipped every song and pome though every time.

i have read it through in one sitting,

😯

were you sponsored?

Got The hobbit in primary school loved it, left school and read the Hobbit again followed quickly by the whole of The Lord of the rings. Quickly came to my senses after 2 or 3 chapters of the Silmarillion!!

Skipped every song and poem though every time

and some of the more dull discriptions of a hobbits house etc.

Read it several times, and I quite like the slow bits. The key tho, as has been noted, is to skip all the poems.

Read the Hobbit and LoR at school have also read the Silmarillion.

Read the part of the first chapter of The Hobbit and gave up. Really cannot see the appeal in the books or the films…

So we can conclude that it is a pooly written, long winded kid’s book.

My thoughts entirely when I gave up on it all thise years ago.

The films are ace though. 😉

i am very sad 😳 😉 (am 36) but have always been into fantasy worlds (whether it be books,films or computer games e.t.c) made a promise to myself that i would read it all the way through one day 🙂

I was happy to work my way through the maths sections of a Neal Stephenson novel.

But after what seemed like 500 pages of Tolkien describing every bloody blade of grass in a bloody field, nothing had happened at all and I couldn’t be arsed. 🙂

I have read it many many times. Love the book but I do just love books and reading

read it twice iirc hobbit twice [ never as an a adult
Silmarillion is like the bible/haynes manual for middle earth – I gave up as well

anagallis_arvensis – Member
Skipped every song and poem though every time
and some of the more dull discriptions of a hobbits house etc.

POSTED 12 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

Don’t you start editing my posts for me 8) Literary reference – William out of Just William calls them pomes.

If anybody wants to read a book where nothing happens…

…my favourite is a 12 volume novel “A Dance to the Music of Time” where, over a 40 year period, er, basically, nothing happens.

Splendid book.

read all the lot last year, for the 2nd time.
the part with my alter ego is a bit tiresome…….. 😆

http://tolkien.cro.net/talesong/heydol.html

and i cant believe someone called him a nazi cockmonkey

Have read LotR, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. Enjoyed The Hobbit, took a few goes to get through LotR but have read it through about 4 times missing out all the songs and bits in other languages, The Silmarillion was a chore to get through. I am still impressed by the level of detail and backstory that Tolkien created

…my favourite is a 12 volume novel “A Dance to the Music of Time” where, over a 40 year period, er, basically, nothing happens.

LOL!

I think you just saved me reading the other 9 volumes…. 🙂

I’ve not got the patience to sit through the films never mind the books.

ballad of bilbo with leonard nimoy anyone?

I liked the Silmarillion because it fleshed out the background for the other books. I think you’d struggle if you read it out of context, because as described it’s not really a novel.

Read it countless times since I was a kid. These days I’ll dip in and read a chapter or find out about a particular character or race or occurrence. Still think it’s amazing, wish the films hadn’t been made to be honest particularly as they screwed up the ending after being pretty true to the storyline for 2 and nine tenths of the films.

I’ve heard it said that if LOtR is your favourite book at 14 then that is fine but if it is still your favourite at 40 something is wrong.

couldn’t have put it better myself

First read it as a kid and still read it every couple of years when I have nothing else to read must admit to skipping some bits though

With the average attention span and levels of literary comprehension in the UK today, I am surprised you can still find it on sale in popular high street stores. 🙂

Read it loads of times as a teenager and into my student days. Was also into wargaming with little tanks and figures and my mate got one of the first Dungeons and Dragons sets in he UK so was well into all of that for a while. I re-read it when the films came along. Good story, needed an editor. If you’ve not read it all the way through, give it another go, makes a lot more sense of the films if you have, especially the minor characters.

Read it as a kid, tried to read the hobbit a few years ago, only managed a few pages. Looking forward to the film 🙂

Read LOTR when i was 16 cover to cover

I don’t have the will power to do it again

looking forward to the hobbit film though

I have read almost everything he has written, and a bunch of stuff about him as well. Must have read LOTR 20+ times over the years. I think it is still very well written but I would agree that Tom Bombadill can get a bit wearing even though the narrative seems to needs the encounter.

When they were making the lotr movies I decided to read the books before seeing the films. Enjoyed the books more than the films tbh.

Read LOTR, Hobbit and the Silmarillion.

Not sure the LOTR was ever intended to be a ‘novel’, more a case of Tolkien wanting to write an English saga with full mythological background.

My favourite bit is in the appendices when he gives the story of the rest of Strider’s life, and after a couple of hundred years he says “time to go” and just lies down and dies. *sob*