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The best epic book of all!

It was pretty good, helping to tie things in with the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It takes a serious reader to sit down and churn through this mother.

woah I can't believe we didn't have a thread about this...anyway I've been meaning to read this,I've heard it's really good

Its very well done. Not sure if its the best book ever though, but I still like it.

(Sign)I try to read it but it is too hard to understand so I gave up after trying one page.Shame through it looks like a great book to read.JM

It's a very thorough and hard read to follow examining how each country was formed, how arda itself was created and the how the Silmarils were taken.

It truelly is a great read, but it's no story, more like a documentation of Middle Earths historical timelines.

If you've read The Silmarillion, you should also read Unfinished Tales. It's an extension of The Silmarillion, and fills holes in certain histories missed by Christopher Tolkien.

Apart from "Leaf by Niggle," the Silmarillion is probably Tolkien's greatest work... from the heights of the creation, and the sheer poetry of the undying lands, to the depths of Middle earth and the bathos of the final passages, the Silmarillion encompasses everything that is great about mythology... written as a mythology for the English, to replace the bastardised remnants of their own, that had been butchered by the political needs of their French overlords, the Silmarillion magnificently fills the gap between prehistory and history... the fate of the children of Feanor is a tale worthy of this Island race, just as the Akallabeth is a fitting Atlantis for the descendants of Viking and Saxon....

It took me a long time to get through this book: in fact, I ended taking about a month break from it. It's quite a hefty book, almost reads like a textbook, really. But I stuck it out and I'm so glad I did! Its a wonderfully comprehensive work that ties in the books with the history of Middle Earth. Kudos To Tolkien, wherever you are

How did any of you ever get through this book i love reading tolkiens books but this one bored me so much i couldnt finish it

It is a great book if you can get thorugh it all cos the background information is immense. It is really interesting how Tolkien completely made up a whole new world. He knew exactly what happened in it and with books like this one it makes it all seem so much more real.

Definitely a must-read for all Lord of the Rings fans. As said before, it describes the whole origin of that world and it's species and characters.
It does take a relentless reader to get trough the beginning, as Tolkien has created such a immense world with so much detail and needs to lay this out first to make the story and events understandable.
I read it after LOTR, and it gave me so much more insight in that story, wish I did it the other way around.

I ADORE this book, I dont think its that hard to read, infact Tolkien is such a great writer that its a easy read, well comparing with mindless comics I'm sure its hard, but its so well explained that its no problem

Tolkien's entire mythology of Middle earth was a linguistic exercise... the whole was invented to show how the languages developed... for example, how the ancient Elvish tongue became, due to the separation of the Elves, divided into Quenya and Sindarin, among others....