My first reading (which was not so long ago - only 4 years!) was of course in the normal order (first the Hobbit, then LotR, Appendices, Silmarillion.) I never felt an urge to skip anything (though I remember that I felt a bit exasperated in the Treebeard chapter). I am not a quick reader, I often reread the last bit , when taking the book up again after a pause.
My sons have the books in the German translation, and when my younger boy started reading them, I read together with him, all the time comparing with the original (because I was
very disappointed by the translation!)
After having read the Silmarillion and Tom Shippey's excellent book (Author of the Century) I reread many parts of the books, because I understood many things much better now, but not from cover to cover.
Another reason to reread parts of the books were the movies: especially after TTT I reread all the parts that seemed "wrong" in the movie, eg the scene where Gandalf heals Theoden, all the Faramir chapters... the altered movie-characters made me love and appreciate the book-characters all the more.
Also, I had joined the BD and started to frequent the "quotable quotes" and ever since it is like
Eruanna wrote:
Quote:
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This usually happens when I've read a certain section for research purposes, found what I want, and then found myself reading much further because I can't put the book down!
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And now I started reading from the start again for the chapter-by-chapter discussion.