Thread: 'Lord of the Rings' books

ya its technically a trilogy but therer are two books in each trilogy book

Technically it is one volume of 6 books + 1 Appendices, sold most commonly in 3 Volumes. If you wanted to be truly accurate, you could say that each of the 6 books are part of one large story, the history of the middle earth.

I would recommend reading the Hobbit before you start reading the Lord of the Rings, or at least Chapter V: Riddles in the Dark. However, even that isn't truly necessary as in the second chapter in book one of the Fellowship of the Ring, "The Shadow of the Past", you will learn more or less how the ring eventually came to be in Bilbo's possession. In the second book of the Fellowship, chapter 2, "the Council of Elrond", again you'll see how Bilbo came upon the ring.

Originally Tolkien had no real link between the LOTR and the Hobbit. Chapter V of the Hobbit was re-worked in 1966, the 2nd edition of the Hobbit, to make clearer the link between the two books. However, the LOTR is written with the mind that you may not have read the Hobbit, so if you read it or not won't really matter, but you'd be missing out on a great book.

I read the hobbit before, it sucks
Some fat little crittie things that run around with wizards shooting them and everyone goes on adventures and they all serve tea and they have beards and did i mention they're fat
but thats just my opinion

You don't sound like you even read the book. Hobbits are not fat (perhaps you are confused with dwarfs who tend to be stocky by nature). Nor do Hobbits have beards. The only hair they have is on their feet (which is they don't need shoes). If you're going to say you don't like something, I'll give you some advice: construct a decent argument.

Xterria, how much of the book did you read. I'm guessing that you started with the book, found it to difficult, and stopped. And most hobbits don't go on adventures.

yeah it said that they were fat with beards.....or was that just the bobbins guy

but still they are fat and stupid and they run around going on adventures and the wizard shoots them and did i mention they're fat


i am right you are wrong this is how the world works
you have to get used to it i know its hard

And most hobbits HATE adventures, only the Tooks, who are a little odd, have some liking for them. And even THEY get sick of them often.

As far as "wizards shooting them" there is only one wizard in the Hobbit, and he doesn't do a heck of a lot besides give advice. Certainly he never shoots hobbits.

The Hobbit is optional -- and BTW, there are 2 separate versions of the Hobbit -- when Tolkien did the LOTR, he rewrote much of chapter 5 of the Hobbit. Basically, in the first printings of the Hobbit, ch. 5 tells a story as he told it to his friends (and he lied). The new ch. 5 tells the real story, which was also recapped in LOTR, for those who never read the "new" Hobbit.

LOTR is a really good series. Probably one of my favorites.

LOTR consists of 6 books, usually sold in 3 volumes (Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King). The Hobbit is a prequel, but somewhat an indirect prequel, so it's not critical to read. The Silmarillion is probably best to read AFTER the LOTR even though most of it takes place before. The Silmarillion is a harder read than the LOTR, but it's a great book as well -- I've read it 5 or 6 times. I didn't much like it after the first time I read it, but with rereading I really began to appreciate it more.

i have tryd, ehh, attempted to read The Silmarillion, but found it to difficult