Which one first?

[Radagast The Brown]

originally posted by Lin
And not only that it gives away the ending, but I think it's important to see if you're into Tolkien's world in the first place. People who have read LotR beforehand, have still been deterred from reading the Silm because of its complexity/difficulty. Imagine someone reading the Silm first, and assuming the rest of JRRT's works are in that style- they wouldn't even bother with LotR!

Right! didn't think about it.

original;ly posted by Anglorfin
It doesn't really matter anymore with the movies coming out now. Besides when my friends read the Sil first they felt great that they weren't just part of the movie fanclub that flocked to LotR books right away. They had a bit more knowledge to wave over everybody else's heads.

I would also suggest to read the books before the movies, becuase the movies destroyed my imagination (I finished to rea dht ebooks just before the first movie - and when I saw Elrond... Now I imagine Elrond as an ugly man.