Reading Timeline

[Sleeping Beauty]

For all of those great knowledgeable Tolkien masters out there, *bows and does the "I'm not worthy" thing* I have a question. I have always been interested in chronologically reading everything about Middle-earth and getting a somewhat clearer picture than the one I have now.

So I'm going to wipe my mind and start afresh. I know nothing about Tolkien except that his stories are fantasy and involve a place called Middle-Earth. What should I start with or what advice do you give?

[Imladrien]

You could look at Chronological Tolkien (http://www.chronology.org/tolkien/) if you only want to read Sil, UT, Hobbit and LotR
or The Order of the Story (http://www.rawbw.com/~wyrmwif/LotR/order.html) if you want to read lots of HoMe, too.
or
The Order to Read Tolkien's books (http://www.stanford.edu/~dbratman/tolkien_order.html) if you want to read just some HoMe included
or you could join Tolkien's Ring (http://groups.msn.com/TolkiensRing/futurehomepage.msnw) who are trying to work out a long term reading group which will start in mid July that plans to add The Atlas of ME and Letters to all of the above called the CoMe Study (Chronology of Middle Earth). "Trying" is a key word, they need all the help they can get.
And then there is a post of lindil's that you might want to look at, too. How to Read a Much Longer Silmarillion (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=8&t=000143)
--Imladrien
PS I am not responsible for the accuracy or inaccuracy of any of these. smilies/wink.gif

[ February 26, 2003: Message edited by: Imladrien ]