Oh man, that novel was the hardest book I've ever read. I found it to be really dry and heavier than Dickens or Tolstoy.

I never got past page 2 of that damn book. "In the beginning there was areiojd son of lhdiofme and he beget adlkjf". Ridiculous.

Yeah, it's pretty much The Bible for Tolkien fans and very very hard going. I think I got halfway through it, though I was a lot younger in those days...

I think it began with some sort of elf whose mind or soul shat out some more elves who all became godly. This was all in the beginning, before anyone had heard about the world and stuff. I haven't read it, but I recently read The Hobbit and I'm halfway through The Fellowship of the Ring. The latter is pretty heavy, even when I'm reading it in damn Norwegian.

If you think Fellowship is heavy you have no chance with Silmarillion. Basically I see it like this: Hobbit = kids and young adults, very entertaining, can be read easily and even as a standalone if you want. LOTR = older adults, requires a lot of work and attention, three books lead into each other. Silmarillion = college professors and people with lots of time. Very dry, very musty, not much in the way of story and more history than anything else. Very heavy on the names, battles, and so on.

I have more memories in winter time

Seriously? It was easy for me. It might even be my favorite. All the different stories are amazing. Turin, Luthien, Feanor, etc. Brilliant. Of course I also love history and would even read my history text books front to back in school long before I had to, so dry is all relative I guess.

I'm serious, and I can easily read a history textbook cover to cover.

I was ten when I read LOTR first time, and I've read it twice after that, in Finnish though. I read The Hobbit in English, and I'm planning that maybe I'll do the same with LOTR but I'm not sure if I'm too assured about my English. And anyway I have read it three times so maybe it's enough and I have no time for reading anyway nowadays.

Heh, The Hobbit took me a couple of months. I have a short attention span.