The Silmarillion

I was torn while reading this. On one hand, it's a fascinating accomplishment, telling the story of the history of Middle-Earth and filling out a lot of the backstory for Tolkien's other works. It's also fascinating from a stylistic perspective - Tolkien wanted to really stress the concept of the Silmarillion as myth, so he presented it in a style similar to the King James bible, which is a subtle yet masterful way of giving the tale the presentation it deserves.

The unfortunate part of it is that Tolkien died before the book could be finished, and it shows in some points - it takes the Silmarillion around 100 pages to really find its gear, and the other stories in the book (the Ainulindale, the Valaquenta, and Akallabeth) are all much stronger stories than the main one. It's a shame that they get a bit of a short shrift in terms of the narrative of the book.