How have you read it?

[Arwen Imladris]

Well, when I first read LOTR, I wanted to skip the beginning of TTT and get back to Frodo and Sam. I did read it all, but rather quickly!

Now, (aside from simple double-checking of facts) I prefer to read it straight through so as not to miss any of Tolkien's beautiful prose.

[Folwren]

Interesting topic.

I have to say that all the times I've read it, I've read it all the way through, from start to finish. Nothing exciting. It's mainly because the last two times I've read it, I've read it out loud and I couldn't very well skip around, could I? But next time I read it, I'm going to be reading it to myself, and depending on how I feel, I think I'm going to skip from Book 2 to Book 4, and there to Book 6, stop at the end of Mount Doom and then go back to Book 3 and read what I didn't before.

But...I've not done that.

And at other times, I have just refered to it as an encyclopedia, as you put it.

[Fallenstar]

I feel the same way, littlemanpoet. I can't stand the last half of the Two Towers, and can barely get myself through the first book up to the point of Strider. I guess one reason is that I hate hobbits, another might be that the journey of the Ring is not too exciting, I love battle scenes more.

The Return of the King is better than the other two books in my opinion....

And Tolkien do start off boring which is the reason for many people I know to stop reading LOTR.

[Boromir88]

Have you read LotR out of order on readings after the first time?

The second time I read it, I read it all the way through again, but since then I find myself just skimming chapters to the info that I desire. Mostly it's to find stuff on Boromir (if that's such a big surprise), to defend him from some of the critics. I also read through the Council of Elrond several times.

When the CBC discussions opened up I read through again each chapter at a time, but then I fell behind from being busy and had to just skip some chapters to get to the current one. (I find myself falling behind in the CbC discussion again now).

[Elendhel]

I always read from start to finish in order, enjoying the progression of the story. But the last time I read it, I was tempted to miss out the beginning entirely, having found that it tends to drag somewhat after seeing the films. Other than this I've never felt compelled to miss sections out, or read individual parts of the story.

[mark12_30]

In my youth I read 'The Hobbit' in one sitting whenever I had a spare day.

When I was an Eomer addict, I read and reread the battle of the Pelennor fields ... I dunno, maybe thirty times? A lot.

When I was a Boromir addict, I read all the stuff that he said or did, over and over.

Lately I find I can hardly pick the book up; it tears me apart too much. I can't go near the last few chapters. Pretty ironic since I have shelves full of the trilogy, and I can barely open the books.

When my life comes out of the pressure cooker for a bit, I may try again. I do miss Chapter by chapter.

[Celuien]

Unless I'm looking for the answer to a trivia question or have a craving to look at a passage that I particularly like, I prefer to read the entire book in order. I like having the continuity of the story intact.

Recently, with RL schedules being out of control, I've been jumping out of order to my favorite chapters. I'll usually skip the battle scenes, if anything, since those were never the main focus for me. But I haven't been able to read at all for the past few weeks because my books are about 300 miles away.