Tolkien books besides Hobbit/LOTR

[Star555]

I read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as a teenager and liked them, but I don't consider myself a massive Tolkien nerd and am not interested in encyclopaedic details about Middle Earth, syntax of the languages, long family trees, etc. (I actually liked Chronicles of Narnia better.) I do enjoy classics and folklore-based works very much.

I saw that many newer standalone books by Tolkien have been posthumously published, such as Fall of Gondolin, Beren and Luthien, Fall of Numenor (upcoming in 2022), etc. If you have read these, which ones do you recommend? I'm looking for strong plots and memorable characters, not books that just flesh out Tolkien's world by adding lots of details or relatively unimportant backstories to satisfy a reader who is obsessed with finding out every possible detail about Middle Earth. Thank you!

Bump! Any recommendations for Tolkien books that are not The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings?

Beren and Luthien would be my recommended book from those you've mentioned. Though you will be familiar with the plot if you've read the Lord of the Rings.

I have the 12 (there may be more) volumes of the history of middle earth. I haven't read those cover to cover, and you don't want to.

The Silmarillion might be the only recommendation I would make after Hobbit and LOTR. Tolkien wrote lots of books, but I'm not sure many would suit. I have a lot of them- but many are just short stories, simplistic or more suitable for children (like Smith of Wootton Major), or they're concerned with the history of middle earth or they're academic. Also poetry if you're interested in that.

I don't think any of them can hold a candle to the big two tbh, I'm not sure they even have stories. He never intended them to be published and they have been cobbled together from his notes and papers.

I suspect the Silmarillion is probably the best of the bunch but it just reads like a rather dry history book and not a novel.

Sorry!

That's true @TonTonMacoute

To be honest Lord of the Rings felt like a "rather dry history book" at times. I just didn't care for the detailed genealogies and backstories of Tolkien's made-up world. I much prefer Narnia or Harry Potter!

I like classic epics but I feel like I only care about intricate details if the story is one I have grown up with and been told in many forms over the years, so reading them is like meeting old friends. For example, I grew up hearing the Iliad and Odyssey stories from parents and grandparents when I was too young too read, then had children's illustrated versions of them, then abridged chapter book versions (Roger Lancelyn Green) and finally the originals. Versions of those classical stories have been passed down over thousands of years and are part of Western culture and tradition.

Whenever Tolkien starts on one of his prolonged explanations of Middle Earth backstories with unfamiliar names and places, my gut reaction is "Why should I care?" Perhaps hundreds of years from now, other authors will write tales based on Tolkien's works and they will become deeply tied to the fabric of Western culture/literature in the way the Iliad and Odyssey are today, but I don't currently feel that way.

@Star555

Well, in that case I really wouldn't bother with the other published Tolkein book then!

Have you read any of the Icelandic sagas? Also things like The Song of Roland. Penguin Classics do a good range of histories and mythology.

Thanks, I haven't read the full texts of either of those but have been planning to for a long time! I've read all the major Greek and Roman epics, tragedies, etc. though.