If You Liked The Lord of the Rings: Other Books in Tolkien’s World

How did you get into the books of JRR Tolkien? Did you start with The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings?

I started with The Hobbit when I was eight. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are very relatable, but these other books are a different thing. They’re compilations of notes and poetry. They are not backstories for The Lord of the Rings, they are older stuff for the complete world that Tolkien created. He wrote his stories multiple times in separate parts over decades.

What do you like about these books that were published after The Lord of The Rings, after Tolkien died?

The vastness. It’s a world more cleverly and extensively and engagingly constructed than any that has existed elsewhere in fiction. It’s the world that has been the most skilfully made of any story. Every detail of that vastness is exciting and fascinating. When you have so many details, the world that you get that contains all of them is really incredible.

Tolkien was professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, do you get a sense of that in The Lord of the Rings and these other books?

There is some stuff which is specifically Anglo-Saxon but there is more to it than that. Some is more generally Germanic. There is something in the narrative and feeling of reading all his works that is only held in common with the likes of Beowulf. But Tolkien’s work is much more epic, whereas Beowulf is rather short. There are echoes of the Eddas and the Icelandic sagas and other epics, but the details are his own.

Have you read Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf?

Not yet. I want to read it. It’s a highly respected translation. It’s not the most popular one, but it is one of three that academics use.

Are you particularly interested in linguistics and how language works?

Yes. Tolkien’s invented languages are very interesting and important as a basis for his world-building in general. It’s where it all started. There are separate books with all his notes on language. In Arda, which Middle-earth is part of, every people has a language and a history that can be recounted in greater detail than the histories of most real world peoples. For example, the language of the dwarves — Khuzdûl — is fascinating to me.

Let’s move on to your book picks. Your first recommendation of Tolkien books to read after The Lord of the Rings is The Silmarillion.

Like The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion is a completed book which JRR Tolkien intended to be published that way. It was published posthumously. I would recommend The Silmarillion to people who are interested in the world that Tolkien created and not just in the characters.

It’s on the grandest of scales. It’s the whole story of Arda, from when it was first sung into existence to when it is finally gone. Tolkien wrote The Silmarillion first of all, but publishers were not interested in what a number of people now call “the fantasy bible”. The Hobbit started as a bedtime story for his children, which the publisher liked a lot more. The Silmarillion is epic, reminiscent of The Bible and the Eddas, and is very broad in scope.

Your next book from Tolkien’s world is The Children of Húrin, which has a highly recommended audiobook version narrated by Sir Christopher Lee. What is it about?

The Children of Húrin and the next three books I am recommending are different from The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. These other books are mainly for people who are already interested in the world that Tolkien created. They are novelty items, based on collected notes published posthumously because people are really interested in Tolkien. Of these, The Children of Húrin is a relatively smooth read. You can get big chunks of straight writing without Christopher Tolkien’s comments.

It is essentially about the sons of a man called Húrin who are trying to recover what they lost with his death. They are claiming their own stories and glories, trying to be good people, and often failing. And it’s about a very shiny hat which a lot of people want. The helmet doesn’t manipulate people with the powerful image that the ring has in The Lord of the Rings. There’s a big dragon that takes captives who need to be rescued. And there are young men who do some pretty bad things out of desperation, or even when they have a better option. Some of The Children of Húrin forms a part of a section of The Silmarillion. It takes place long before the action of The Lord of the Rings.

What do you think of Christopher Tolkien’s commentary in these books? For people who are interested in the world-building but not completely obsessed, would it be reasonable to skip it?

The commentary is interesting and necessary in a lot of cases. It provides the context of when JRR Tolkien wrote what. Christopher didn’t edit any of his father’s work but his commentary is useful.

Your next book recommendation is Beren and Lúthien, can you tell me about it?

This is a very nice love story, I liked it a lot when I read it. We get the same sequence of events in different ways, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose. If you just want the basic story, you can read about it in The Silmarillion.

The plot is that Beren is a man, a mortal, who falls in love with Lúthien, an elf woman who likes him. Elves are immortal. Lúthien’s father feels he needs the man’s worth to be proved, so Beren goes off and does more than could ever be expected of him, including sneaking into Morgoth’s keep. They steal a Silmaril from Morgoth, who is basically Satan. One of the minor villains is Sauron, under a different name, before he has many of his defining character traits.

Your next book recommendation is The Fall of Gondolin, what is it about?

Gondolin is an elvish city in the mountains in a vast land, that has survived through being hidden for centuries. Morgoth is an entirely evil power that controls the north. The Fall of Gondolin is in part about a man who finds Gondolin and makes a life there. It is also about how the city is finally located by Morgoth and completely destroyed. And it touches on the societies that will later arise.

The verse in The Fall of Gondolin flows very well, in a way that is reminiscent of the poetry in the Icelandic sagas and epics like The Odyssey and The Iliad. It’s basically a scrapbook collection; some of it is Tolkien’s notes, some is prose, while the largest contiguous chunks are verse.

We have come to your final book recommendation for people who liked The Lord of the Rings: The Fall of Númenor.

The Fall of Númenor is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, after the three books we have just talked about but before The Hobbit and The Lord of Rings. Númenor is a kingdom of men, which is very successful for a while. Sauron is the primary instigator of its fall, although he was called Zigûr then. At this point Sauron becomes the more present threat in the world. We see his ability to manipulate people, which is very relevant to what he becomes in The Lord of the Rings. The Fall of Númenor came out quite recently, after the death of Christopher Tolkien, JRR’s son who edited all the other books we have talked about.

There are so many books relating to Middle-earth. Do you want to highlight any companion volumes or particular editions?

Flora of Middle-Earth is crucial to a complete understanding of Tolkien’s works. There are specific trees of great importance in the books we have talked about, and Flora of Middle-Earth helps our understanding of the cosmology. Apart from that, I recommend the editions illustrated by Alan Lee, he’s amazing.

Alan Lee has done an interview with Five Books on books drawn from myth and fairy tale.

Cool! His illustrations are amazing, especially the book covers.

Does the reading order of these books matter?

The order doesn’t matter at all, just read what you feel like. You could read it in the chronological order of the world Tolkien created — a timeline of Arda — or the order of publication. Some people skip relevant chapters in The Silmarillion and go to the standalone publications. I would recommend reading The Silmarillion all the way through, otherwise it’s a massive change of pace because these other books are organised so differently. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are less than a paragraph of The Silmarillion.

Is there anything you would like to add about these books, for people who liked The Lord of the Rings and aren’t sure what to read next set in Tolkien’s world?

Not everyone who liked The Lord of the Rings would enjoy reading the books I have recommended here. They are for people who are keen to find out every last detail about the world Tolkien created, who aren’t satisfied with just a narrative or a story. Arda, which Middle-earth is part of, is far more vast than The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings can encompass, so these other books are good for people who may be interested in extending the world of those two books, who want to know why all of it is there and what happens to it at the end. The most typical thing to like is the older history, the pre-Hobbit and pre-Lord of the Rings history of the elves, which is very detailed. But there is a whole universe with the languages, stories and worlds of all the peoples who have existed in all of Arda and how it ends eventually in the battle of battles.

I would also recommend these books to people who have an interest in the linguistic side of things. A lot of people find the enormous number of constructed languages that Tolkien has provided us with an incredible boon. And these books give a sense of how Tolkien at one point was drawn to writing in verse in a much more grandiose style of language than we get in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The posthumous publishing allows us to understand the completeness of the world created by Tolkien. No details are missed. Like when the dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost get flooded and Tolkien shows on maps where they flee to. Nothing is left forgotten. The only mysteries in Middle-earth are deliberate.