Review of The Silmarillion (Middle Earth)

How to go from zero to Tolkien nerd in only ~400 pages!

No, really though, this was a fascinating read. The depth of history and the sense of legend imbued in the writing make it worth all the confusing lineages and the fact that you may never again wish to hear the words "light", "shadow", "doom", and "fair" again.

Highly recommended: use a reader's guide; the downloadable one at askmiddleearth.tumblr.com is quite good.