Welcome to the Forum Hannum4.

I have only read Volumes I and II and was kind of bored. I assume the Plastic Squirrel will be along later to give you a better perspective on the series; he has read most of them.

Do I really seem to have read most of them? Fantastic, what a blag! I've only got Lost Tales 2, Lays of Beleriand and the Lost Road. Never read any others either.
As to whether they're any good, it depends on how much of an obssessive fan you are, as they are just notes and early drafts for what would later become the major works. CT's annotations are overly long and dull, and you do have to read about 99999 different versions of Beren and Luthien and Turin etc. etc. But it's worth it to get into the mind of a genius, and try and work out what made him tick.
Hard going, but quite rewarding, would be my opinion. Good luck Hannum4!

It's so difficult to get Morgoth's Ring! The first 5 volumes of HoME are easily available, but not the rest.

Keep on hoping..... btw, you can get all of them at bol.com.

yeh, i really love anything with elves and the beauty of forests and stuff-- cant wait to read all volumes 1-12

Hi to everybody,

for my part I am not a native english speaker and read LotR and the Hobbit twice in english. From the start I was overwhelmed by the way Tolkien intelligently uses his words and creates a world right before your Eyes. After finishing the two I was up to the HoME to delve even deeper in his world.

I started with Lost Tales 1 and I noticed the difference in his writing right from the start. Probably due to the fact that the HoME is set up of different notes and drafts there is no real plot and characters to follow.
On my second try I found that leaving out CT’s annotations was much more fun and I could follow the story quite well. Once you get over the beginning with the coming of the eldar and you get to know Melkor a little bit it becomes really fascinating and worth reading.

I can just motivate everybody to read or at least scan through HoME to get a bigger picture of Middle-Earth and the history it is build on.

cheers
Eaglearrow

I have not read lost tales 1, but I have read lost tales 2. When I was reading about Turin, I would go through the Turin tales in UT as well, and that helped a lot. I have the first four books in the HoMe series, but have only read Lost Tales 2. I have also ordered the next 2 book as well . Next pay day I will order more, but I still need to finish the Silm. That is slow going because i am always on this **** website, that I love too much.

Man, it has been a while since I made a post to this thread. I now have more of the HoME series, up through book IX Sauron Defeated. Which just got here today. I have been ordering books every 2 weeks for about the last 3 months or so. lolrr I finished the Silm a while back ago. I posted it somewhere, just not sure where at the moment. I am currently about 1/2 through Lost Tales 1. So far I am really enjoying it. I had to take a break from Tolkien related books for a bit. Too much thinking. I needed an easy read or 2. rrWoohooo!!! My 600th post!!!!

I'm pretty indignant about HOME being boring. HOME is really cool! I've got Morgoth's Ring and it is AMAZING! especially the debate of Finrod and Andreth part. The Shaping of ME was also great. It throws a lot of light on what the world was like before Quenta Silmarillion and it's interesting to learn about the Valar. the Books of Lost Tales were a bit boring, though I still say they are worth a flip-through. And the Lays of Beleriand!!! OMG they were just fantastic and I got absolutely lost in Tolkien's fancy words.

yeah, Thorgill, u're damn right, it isn't boring, but not everyone thinks like we do, we're an endangered species... I've got Unfinished tales, by the way