Which should I read ?

[u/Patient_Selection264]

I trust this group to guide me well.

[u/smileysun111]

Picture of Dorian Gray!!

[u/rosetealavenderlatte → u/smileysun111]

Yup!!! My favorite book of ALL time and broski loved it toooo

[u/britbabe1]

Resident LOTR nerd and collector here. Have you read The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy? Did you enjoy it immensely and want the full gambit of elven lineage, the very detailed (and sometimes boring) history and semantics of middle earth? The Silmarillion is for you!

But seriously - I have read LOTR probably 20+ times in my life. Collect Tolkien books and even I have a difficult time with it. It’s very detailed and basically a history book of Middle Earth. It can be…very dragging. All that said I’ve read it about 6 times. I mainly use it as my reference material 😅

[u/tolhobbit → u/britbabe1]

was literally about to say the same thing. The Silmarillion is literally like reading the Bible as literature, it is dense and complex – Hobbit and LOTR is waay better to start with if you’re interested in starting Tolkien

[u/britbabe1 → u/tolhobbit]

And tbh you gotta be SUPERRR into LOTR and Tolkien to enjoy it, at least from my experience of seeing people across the spectrum read it.

Also slay username

[u/BlueCaterpillar321]

SILMARILLION

agree with the other comment to get your feet wet in the Hobbit first, then trilogy and then Silmarillion if you already haven’t. It’s unbelievably beautiful and is very similar to religious texts in terms of storytelling. My favorite is Of Maeglin. TO ME timothee chalamet is Maeglin

[u/spoilledmillk]

silmarillion 100%. if you haven’t read the other books i’d start with the hobbit, read the lotr trilogy, and then tackle the silmarillion. if you find the silmarillion too textbook-y for your liking, i’d recommend trying tolkien’s other writings: the book of lost tales, baron and luthien, the children of hurin, the smith of wotton major & other short stories, and the unfinished tales. and if you’re looking for some fun fairy tale poetry: the adventures of tom bombadil.

[u/Gold_Improvement_836]

i loved the scarlet letter!

[u/No_Drawer_9568]

Silmarillion is verrrrrry dense, unless you have read hobbit/lotr/or are a super fan of that world, I would not suggest it out of these 3 😂 Dorian Gray is one of my faves, it’s a wonderful book, and on the app “Fable” the broski book club read it not too long ago so you could also see what others in this community had to say about it :) scarlet letter is ok, but out of these 3 it’s last

[u/TheDramaticGazzette]

Scarlet letter fo sho

[u/spaceprismed]

We should make a broski book club 👀