Looking to get into Tolkien

You almost certainly want to start with either The Hobbit or LotR, then read the other one next. Those are the only two novels published in his lifetime.

The Hobbit was written first and is set chronologically first, so that’s a good reason to start there. But it is definitely a children’s book. And while it is a very good one, it does read like a children’s book. So starting with LotR gives you a better taste of Tolkien. So there is good reason to start there too. It’s up to personal choice.

Once you’ve read both of those (or read LotR and skipped The Hobbit), the next one to read is almost certainly The Silmarillion. The Silmarillion was published posthumously and was mostly written entirely by Tolkien, with only minor edits by his son. It is (mostly) a tale of the first age (the movies are the third age) and it reads like a collection of mythology more than like a novel. It has very little action and almost no dialogue. It’s almost better thought of as a collection of plot summaries. I say this only to explain why it’s a really bad first read. Many people have done it first, but it’s definitely better after having read LotR.

After that, you’ll want to read Children of Hurin. Children of Hurin is a novelization of one of those stories from the Silmarillion. Knowing the Silmarillion backstory isn’t technically necessary, but it certainly helps.

Next would be Unfinished Tales. Unfinished Tales is a collection of, well, unfinished tales. It is broken into three parts, each corresponding to one of the first three ages. Now, part three and possibly part two can be read as early as between LotR and The Silmarillion. Reading Unfinished Tales can be a very good litmus test for if you really want to read Tolkien after finishing LotR. In any case, I’d recommend it here because it forms a good bridge between the mostly completed works that have come before, and the rest of Tolkien’s works.

The rest of Tolkien’s Middle-earth works (History of Middle-earth, Beren and Luthien, and The Fall of Gondolin) are very different works. Rather than being completed fictitious stories of one form or another, they trace the histories of his stories. Take Beren and Luthien for example. It isn’t a novelization of the Beren and Luthien story (one of those first age Silmarillion stories) like Children of Hurin. Rather it’s Tolkien’s narrative history of that story. It shows how the story changed and evolved over the years as Tolkien wrote and rewrote and never completed the story. So it’s a very different kind of work. Fall of Gondolin is that to a greater degree, as it’s an even less finished story. And History of Middle-earth is that for basically the entire legendarium.

If you make it through all those, you are done with the “core” of Tolkien and you can revisit what to read next. You could explore the Middle-earth stuff edited by other sources, you could look into his poetry, his academic works, or his non-Middle-earth fiction, the latter of which is some of my favorite of all his works.

Tl;dr: definitely not chronologically. Publication order is good enough, unless you want to slightly change around the order of a few works.

I recommend the following order to start:

The Hobbit >LOTR >The Children of Húrin >The Silmarillion >Unfinished Tales

There are many more books, but these are a good entry point. LOTR is much slower paced as a book, more focused on atmosphere and characters. Just keep in mind that The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales are written in a more historical style. Appendix A in LOTR is a good example of this. Some interesting books to read after Silmarillion are:

Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad, containing maps, migrations, and journeys. Very helpful for understanding Silmarillion, though it contains spoilers for it. Proverbs of Middle-earth by David Rowe is a great analysis of the quotes of LOTR. As for the rest of the books, this post covers everything written by or related to Tolkien. Just avoid David Day's books.

Enjoy your adventures in Middle-earth!

I definitely recommend published order for the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit has a simpler and childlike tone and writing style, but is no less excellent for it. LotR starts with the same lighthearted tone, and then transitions to the more epic form as Frodo leaves the Shire. This is where many fans end.

Once you’ve read those, then you can decide how deep down the hole to fall and whether you want to read the great body of texts that make up the legendmain. The main books take place at the end of the Third Age and are completely self contained. If you want to then learn the backstory the Silmarillion provides the tales of the First Age, especially around three “Great Tales:” The Children of Húrin, Beren and Luthien, and the Fall of Gondolin. It in a lot of places reads more like a history book than a novel. This is where even more fans end up.

The next is to pick up Unfinished Tales which contains a lot of smaller stories; often as the title suggests, not quite in a finished state. However there’s some great stories in there, some of which were intended to go into one or another published works, others stand alone tales. This is where all but the most die hard fans are content.

After that if you want to keep going, no longer in any particular order, there’s the multi-volume History of Middle Earth series which delves into the textual history of the works, alternative drafts, and a series of essays on wide ranging topics. Read this if you loved the appendices and UT. There’s collection of his Letters which go into questions folks asked, and show great insight to the Author as well as his works. If you loved the snippets of poetry, there’s The Adventures of Tom Bombadil which is a collection of ME poetry… and so much more.

But the proper reading order is definitely Hobbit -> LotR -> Silmarillion-> Unfinished Tales -> whatever else catches your fancy after.