Many of the enthusiasts on this forum have read widely of Tolkien's own works as well as other people writing about Tolkien and Middle-earth.

Would people be interested in offering up what they would recommend for reading if someone wanted to move on past The Hobbit or The LotR?

Or, what your favorite books on Tolkien or Middle-earth might be?

And, even, if someone wanted to dive into the secondary scholarship being done on Middle-earth, what that might be?

What I'm thinking of here is someone new to Tolkien as well as TOR. There is a wealth of knowledge and insight on this forum that could direct the inquisitive new player down countless rabbit-holes and fox-trails if they wanted to read beyond The Hobbit and The LotR...!

Regards,
E

Once you go beyond the Hobbit and LotR you are stepping out of fiction and into history... albeit a history created by Tolkien.

The Silmarilion covers pretty much the history of Middle Earth, so it's the place to go if you want to read about ages prior to the third.

Not sure I would recommend anything else, but I know there are Tolkien scholars in these forums than can give you better guidance.

I think the Carpenter biography of Tolkien is really interesting and very worth reading.

For me, it's got to be 'Unfinished Tales'.

It provides further information of direct relevance to Hobbit and LOTR.

'Unfinished Tales' for me too!
It bridges the space between straight narrative like the novels -- of which it has some -- and all Tolkien's other writings, which tend to be in essay form, or even more fragmentary. The essays in UT are pure gold and highly relevant.

'Children of Hurin' is a proper story, and more accessible than other parts of The Silm.

Or if tackling The Silm itself head-on, it might help to skip the opening Ainulindale and Valaquenta, and crack straight on with the main text. ("Heresy!" I hear the cries. But seriously, guys, those first two sections put off a lot of people.)

If you already know you're committed enough to go for research, then I'd recommend following UT with the Osanwe-kenta essay and HoMe 10: Morgoth's Ring.

Cheers,
--Os.

I am listening to "The Silmarillion" on my iPod. It's enjoyable, but only in chunks. I tried reading it but my brain kept wandering.

I also have been reading Cornwell's Saxon Tales series, while this has NOTHING to do with Tolkien it is set in the Dark Ages and that's where Tolkien claims to have gotten much of his inspiration.

I also read an interesting book, I think the title was "Life in the year 1000". It is interesting in that it talks about life in the Dark Ages.

Once I finish "The Silmarillion" I plan to tackle "Unfinished Tales".

I'm surprised a lot of people are put off by the Silmarillion. I read it when I was starting high school, and it still remains one of my favorites some 3 decades later.

Did you read The Lord of the Rings Appendices already? Yes, I agree: 'Unfinished Tales' and then 'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil'. Don't jump into 'Children of Hurin' without reading 'The Silmarillion' before. And give a try to 'HoME: The Peoples of Middle Earth', specifically 'Late Writings: Of Dwarves and Men' and 'Unfinished Tales: The New Shadow; Tal-Elmar'.

That's my advice.

Don't get me wrong, I love the information in the Silmarillion, but the beginning is like reading the book of Genesis, it's dry.

Not so much begetting though, that's left to the appendices.

I'm being serious here but after reading The Hobbit and LotR, personally I'd go with Farmer Giles of Ham. I think its got an awful lot in common with The Hobbit (Farmer Giles could easily be one of the little folk) but also I think it'd be a nice change of pace before you went on to something 'heavier'. After reading that, I'd probably move onto Unfinished Tales.

I have no problem with that. My nest character will be Sauron's uncle's half-brother.

The main problem with reading the Silmarillion is the constantly shifting names. As you try to read through the material you begin to lose track of who is who. Morgoth or Melkor or Enemy? Ainur, Valar or Maia? Not to mention all those folks who go an accomplish something and get all uppity and change their names (Elves and Numenoreans).

After reading a couple stories you kind of need a glossary of names, a detailed timeline and a relationship flowchart to keep track of it all.

But that is probably why all of us love Tolkien so much.

Its probably destroying what little hope I ever had of anyone respecting me here (so I'll get it out the way at the beginning of my tenure) but I just couldn't get through The Silmarillion - its simply too difficult and heavy to read for me. Sorry.

No problem. I've heard that from different people in several discussion boards.

The Silmarillion was never intended to be published in that form. As far as I know, the idea was to have Aelfwine, a man living in Dark Ages England, to have the Right Path to the Undying Lands thanks to his Númenórean blood.

There, in Tol Eressëa (no mortal is allowed to set foot in the Aman itself), he would be welcomed by Elves and each night they would tell him a story of old. And Aelfwine's curiosity would have lead us from tale to tale, discovering little by the little the whole history of Middle-earth since it was planned by Eru.

Getting back into topic, I agree with the Unfinished Tales option.

After reading the two main Tolkien books, you have many options.
This is quite a big guide, but don't be put off, just pick what is of interest to you. I have missed some books out since I don't have them, please feel free to add to my list below.

There are annotations to both the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, worth a look as they give you extra information to the stories you are reading (a highlight for me in the Hobbit one is that there are illustrations by Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins, for the Finnish version of The Hobbit!) -

• The Annotated Hobbit - annotations by Douglas A. Anderson
• The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion - Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull

A handy reference to have by your side is -

• The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth by Robert Foster -I have the illustrated version, beautiful art by Ted Nasmith

Both the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are set in the Third Age of Middle Earth. But there are two Ages before that, and quite a lot of the history/stories from those ages are collected by JRR Tolkien's son, Christopher, from unpublished work (in his lifetime) by Tolkien. Tolkien always pushed for these to be published, but he never got it to a stage he was happy with. There are in some cases many versions of the core stories.

• Silmarillion by JRR & Christopher Tolkien - The First Age (from before there was a Middle Earth to the downfall of Morgoth), a chapter about the Second Age (Numenor), a chapter on the Rings of Power (Third Age)
• Unfinished Tales by JRR & Christopher Tolkien - incomplete stories from all three ages of Middle Earth. There is some great stuff in here, including the how Gandalf convinced the Dwarves to visit Bilbo in the Hobbit (known as the "Quest of Erebor"), what the Nazgul, Gandalf and Aragorn were up to before the hobbits reached Bree ("Hunt for the Ring"), more on Numenor and how Rohan became Rohan.

As well as those, Tolkien wrote many other stories, not all necessarily set in Middle Earth but all worth a read -

• Children of Hurin - a story from the Silmarillion
• Bilbo's Last Song - a poem by JRR Tolkien illustrated by Pauline Baynes
• Tales from the Perilous Realm - The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (set in Middle Earth - "The Marsh Bell" adventure in the Loremasters Book has a link with the "the Mewlips" poem), Leaf by Niggle, Smith of Wootton Manor, Farmer Giles of Ham
• Roverandom - based on a toy dog his son lost at the beach whilst on holiday
• Tree and Leaf - my version of this includes "Leaf by Niggle," the poems "Mythopoeia" and "The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth" and Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Stories"
• Letters from Father Christmas - letters Tolkien sent to his children at Christmas time, alleged to be from Father Christmas, each one furthering his story. Beautiful llustrations by Tolkien himself
• Mr Bliss - a children's story, again illustrated by Tolkien.

If you are interested in knowing more about the man and how he came to write all these wonderful stories, there are a few "official" books -

• JRR Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter
• JRR Tolkien: Author of the Century by Tom Shippey
• The Road to Middle Earth by Tom Shippey
• The Letters of JRR Tolkien by JRR Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien

Carpenter's book is very accessible and enjoyable. Shippey's books are enjoyable but can be tough reading since he really gets into what makes Tolkien tick. Worth the time spent on all those three.

You then can dig deeper into the whole of Middle Earth with the twelve volume (volume 13 is an index) "History of Middle Earth" series by Christopher Tolkien where he collects and discusses the various versions of the tales written by JRR Tolkien from the First to Fourth Age. Volume 12 ("The Peoples of Middle Earth") actually has an unfinished story set in the Fourth Age called "The New Shadow". There are also tons of essays in the series by Tolkien himself about the lore, races, etc. I won't lie, the books can be hard going because they are very scholarly and there are multiple repeats of the same stories with various versions and alterations, but if you really want to get into Middle Earth, these are just fantastic. I am still reading through them now!

• 1. The Book of Lost Tales 1
• 2. The Book of Lost Tales 2
• 3. The Lays of Beleriand
• 4. The Shaping of Middle-earth
• 5. The Lost Road and Other Writings
• 6. The Return of the Shadow (The History of The Lord of the Rings v.1)
• 7. The Treason of Isengard (The History of The Lord of the Rings v.2)
• 8. The War of the Ring (The History of The Lord of the Rings v.3)
• 9. Sauron Defeated (includes The History of The Lord of the Rings v.4)
• 10. Morgoth's Ring (The Later Silmarillion v.1)
• 11. The War of the Jewels (The Later Silmarillion v.2)
• 12. The Peoples of Middle-earth
• 13. Index

There is also a two volume History of the Hobbit, containing the original manuscript -

• 1. The History of the Hobbit: Mr Baggins - John D. Rateliff
• 2. The History of the Hobbit: Return to Bag-End - John D. Rateliff

If you want to see more about the art of Tolkien, check out the following -

• JRR Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull
• The Art of the Hobbit by JRR Tolkien by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull
• A Tolkien Tapestry by Cor Blok - Blok created a series of paintings illustrating the Lord of the Rings back in the 1960s, Tolkien himself bought a few of the paintings. Note: This book is about Blok's art not Tolkien's.

If you love Tolkien's maps and want more -

• The Atlas of Middle-Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad - beautiful maps by a skilled cartographer.
• There and Back Again: The Map of Tolkien's The Hobbit by Brian Sibley and John Howe
• The road goes ever on and on: The Map of Tolkien's Middle-earth by Brian Sibley and John Howe
• West of the Mountains, East of the Sea: The Map of Tolkien's Beleriand by Brian Sibley and John Howe

If music is your thing, I'd recommend the following -

• The Road goes ever on by JRR Tolkien and Donald Swann (includes a CD of Swann's music)
• Complete Songs and Poems: The Lord of the Rings by the Tolkien Ensemble and Christopher Lee - collection of music on CDs covering any songs or poems in the Lord of the Rings. The accompanying guidebook is illustrated by HM Queen Margrethe II of Denmark!
• The Tolkien Audio Collection - excerpts from the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion read by Tolkien himself and his son, Christopher - 4 1/2 hours worth.

Online scholarly work about Tolkien, especially looking into the Hobbit can be found here -

• Mythgard Institute: The Hobbit Lectures - WWW
• Mythgard Institute: Riddles in the Dark - WWW
• Oxford University: Tolkien at Oxford - WWW

There are plenty of organisations and institutions about Tolkien and researching his work. The Tolkien Society is definitely worth a look!

And if you are in the UK and want to walk around places that may have inspired Tolkien, I'd recommend Hurst Green/Stonyhurt College in the Ribble Valley, Lancashire (Acrobat PDF file), Tolkien's Oxford and Sarehole Mill near Birmingham (Acrobat PDF file).

I've just found some books written by a member of the Tolkien Society discussing the places in the UK associated with Tolkien. I have them on order, so I haven't read them as yet.

New!

• The Pitkin Guide to Tolkien by Robert S Blackham
• The Roots of Tolkien's Middle Earth by Robert S Blackham - Tolkien in Birmingham
• Tolkien's Oxford by Robert S Blackham
• Tolkien and the Peril of War by Robert S Blackham - Tolkien during WW1

timb, that really needs to be added to the Resources thread up top. An excellent post, in every way.

Thanks!
Not sure if that top thread is just for TOR resources and it's managed by John. If he's happy for me to add the info here to that post, I will happily do so

I've added a sentence about connected "The Marsh Bell" and "The Mewlips" poem from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil to the list btw

Nice list, timb! It's interesting reading, especially the Histories, since you can see the evolution of the Silmarillion and LOTR. Unfortunately, I only got up to Lost Road, but maybe I'll finish my collection someday.

I heartily endorse Atlas of Middle-earth. The maps are useful for your campaign. The Complete Guide to Middle-earth is also invaluable as an encyclopedia, if you get lost with all the characters in the books.

All, thank you for adding (and, hopefully, continuing to add) your recommendations!

UndeadTout picked up on precisely the reason for starting a thread like this as well as the thread "What was your first encounter with Tolkien and Moddle-earth?"

Hopefully, we can provide players new to Tolkien some insight into those basic questions "Where to start?" and "What to read?" along with some interesting recommendations. The two together can form a new pinned thread for "Tolkien Resources" separate from TOR Resources.

For many who have found and fallen in love with TOR and through TOR Middle-earth, this thread and the "where to start" thread provide whole new avenues for exploring Tolkien's creation!

Thanks to all andas always I amazed by the collaborative spirit the seems to guide this forum!

Regards,
E

I agree with the other posts - you've done an excellent job Timb.

For those of you who love maps of Middle-earth, I'd also recommend finding Pauline Bayne's poster maps. She painted two, one for LOTR & one for The Hobbit.

You can locate scans online, though they loose the display of the full-sized poster maps.

She interviewed the professor & added all types of goodies hitherto excluded, so they're considered classics

Iron Crown Enterprises had some good maps when they had the Middle-earth licence. Mind you, some of their touches were not canon, but most of their stuff was set in Eregion and Gondor.

For me, the Tolkien Reader is a must. And The Silmarillion, of course.