#5: Lord of the Rings (J.R.R Tolkien)
Tolkien's spent his life writing in the Lord of the Rings world. Tolkien pretty much has four "novel" type stories set in middle earth. I have listed them below in chronological order. Click on the book picture to get an Amazon book description. The Silmarillion is a prequel to the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It details the entire history of Middle Earth, how it was formed, describes the history of the First, Second, and Third ages. If you want to really know the history of Middle Earth, and read some of the old tales, read the Silmarillion -- it's sort of the pre-story of the Lord of the Rings, a history of Middle Earth. Children of Hurin is Tolkien's old "new" novel that was recently released by his son, Christopher Tolkien. Christopher edited and completed one of Tolkien's unpublished works. It's a greatly expanded version of Chapter XXI of The Silmarillion, "Of Turin Turambar." and takes place long long before the Hobbit. The Hobbit is the precursor to The Lord of the Rings and pretty much a must read if you like Lord of the Rings. If you have never read Lord of the Rings, I suggest starting with the Hobbit then move on to Lord of the Rings. You can then read the Silmarillion and Children of Hurin
I just finished reading the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. They were amazing, well written and everything. I am so glad that I spent the time reading them. It was hard to get into the way Tolkien wrote, but once I got past it, I could not put them down.
I'm a lover of Tolkien Legendarium. My #1 choice ever is The Lord of The Rings., especially for the symbolism about death, deception, anti-heroism, and tragic.
Sorry for my poor english.
I love Tolkien's work so much! I read a lot of fantasy, but up till now I've never read something so sweeping and original. Some fantasy books are really good, but the author kind of slips by making his/her character's too Mary-Sue like.
It is my personal belief that pretty much any fiction book written in the past 3 decades (and the ones that will be written in at least the next 3 decades, if not a lot longer) is inspired to some extent by Tolkien. and i do remember, at first, how hard it could be for a year old to read such a complicated, long (and sometimes boring, sorry) trilogy, but now i understand just how revolutionary and powerful his works are. people love them deeply, as deeply as sam is loyal to frodo. i love the lord of the rings deeply. which is why i think it should be at the top of that list, not just forth.
I read the Hobbit and TLOTR trilogy very good reads. If you want to have great times get the audio books. The narrator is Robert Inglis and he is tremendous. He Sings all the songs, chants all the poetry and speaks all the languages. I have listened to the series 3 times and love it every time.
I've read over 800 works of fiction and at least 400 in the fantasy genera. I first read the books in the 5th grade, and Tolkien was again assigned to me in 7th Grade English. Maybe I was too young, but I was just bored. I've re-read the books at 24... and I still found the level detail tedious. I often thought they could be abridged to half their length with little lost in content. Please don't be upset by my comments though, I know I'm in the majority. I read for pleasure, and I never found the books pleasurable.
Strangely I grew up reading Sci-Fi Fantasy. When I was younger, I liked The Chronicles of Narnia, Robert Asprin's Myth-INC series, and Piers Anthony's Xanth series. Later, I fell into the Dragonlance series (anything by Margeret Weis and Tracy Hickman), and Tad William's Dragonbone Chair series. Katherine Kerr's Daggerspell series was good. Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is ok (though a bit preachy towards the end). Robert's Jordan's Wheel of Time series is probably one of my favorites. Harry Potter is even enjoyable. I also like anything by Steven King, Dean Koontz, John Grishim, Terry Pratchett, Robin Cook, Anne Rice, Preston/Childs, Gary Gyrax, Jon DeCamp, Allen Craig Shaw Gardner, David Eddings, Raymond E. Feist, Terry Brooks, Fred Saberhagen, Rick Cook, Christopher Shersteff, LE Modestill Jr, etc...
Anyway, I consider myself well read, but Tolkein was just never one of my favorites. There is probably something wrong with me, but I just don't get it.
what can one say about tolkien? i read lotr initially in 3rd grade and have re-read it regularly for my entire life. more that any book i've read tolkien moves you to a sense of wonder and amazement...he makes you feel like a child instead of a cynical jaded adult. he makes you wonder what magical thing is over the next hill and you are sad when the stories path doesn't take you there. many books i have read leave you wishing you could spend more time with the characters- tolkien does this and more. you want to spend more time with sam when he is mayor, with aragorn as king- but even more than that you wish there were some way to explore middle-earth further. tolkien created such a vivid world and wrote so little about it. you want to know the depths of mirkwood and the ruined town of tharbad, and to travel to places only mentioned, like the dark sad waters of the sea of rhun. you look at the map and wonder what lies beyond the borders and what are the stories of those who live there. and part of the magic is that we will never know. he created a vast space with a tremendous sense of antiquity and history and only filled in a teaspoon's worth, leaving the remainder to our imagination.
Simply stated, any other book on this list, if it were never published, would have little affect to any other title on the list.
But if The Lord of the Rings was never published, fantasy as the genre we have today would not exist. Every fantasy writer alive today owes a debt to J.R.R. Tolkien.
Everybody knows Tolkien's work. I remember my father telling me about Lord of the Ring's many years before the movies surfaced, but I was still quite young when they eventually did. In the grand scheme of things I am still considered very young. But having watched the movies and read the stories I can honestly say that the movies DID do the series justice, with the exception of a few details that were obviously left out for length issues.
In saying that, it's definately a series that a fantasy lover cannot walk by! Although I often found Tolkien's vivid descriptions overly extensive and unnecessarily drawn out, for many people that is the charm of his brilliant story writing talents.
For people just getting into the fantasy-genre of book reading, Tolkien will not disappoint!
It is kind of tough to describe this because if your on this site, then im sure you have to know a good deal about this series. Of course a lot of people are going to disagree with me, but i always make a point that this is one of those rare exceptions where the movies are better than the books. thats not to say these books are bad. The movies were AMAZING, these books are great also. when reading them, you can tell they have an "old" vibe to them. like reading a modern book, then going back to reading Shakespeare. They are all really intense and have you feel for each character and they take you on a ride with them on there journeys throughout middle earth.
You said it better than any of us could:
"Do I really even need to discuss it?"
Even if it were not the father of all fantasy, it would still probably be the greatest.
I think that Tolkien is a shining example of how one can write a fantasy novel and still have it be "good literature." There is so much depth, and emotion, I doubt there's really any way to talk about it which does it justice. The best word to describe it would be art.
I love all of Tolkien's work from the Silmarillion to the LOTR. No other author gives such vivid detail and has his ability to completely submerge the reader in the world he's created. The only downfall....all that detail, history and explaining makes for a few boring spots, but they're well worth it!
My #1 favourite book. I love the sweep of Tolkien's imagination, the history, languages and different realms he created. I love the range of characters, from flawed heroes to sympathetic villains, with unexpected friendships thrown in.
This has been a favourite for over thirty years now. There are other great books out there (some of them in this list) but this beats them all.
Jay