It is difficult to put into words how completely captivating and engrossing these stories are. The stories of Feanor and his sons and the Silmarils, the fall of Gondolin, the love story of Beren and Luthien, the tragic story of Turin Turambar all completely enthralled me. I actually felt quite bereft when I'd finished it. By the time I had reached chapter 6 'Of Feanor and the unchaining of Melkor' I was completely gripped and couldn't put the book down. I knew I was having difficulty reading the first chapters so I forced myself to read two pages a day (not an ideal way to enjoy a book!). This time I bought it in hardback, thinking that I could guilt myself into reading it as I'd paid so much for it. Many years later I decided I would try The Silmarillion again. In the end I gave my paperback to charity.

Once more I couldn't get past the first couple of chapters. However, a few months later I tried again. What was this? It was like reading the Bible. I gave up after a few pages feeling bored and confused. I bought The Silmarillion a long time ago in paperback, settled down and started to read. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice.

Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.

The silmarillion ted nasmith