Additional trivia on the Silmarillion.
Christopher Tolkien invited a university student he'd met in Manitoba to come to Oxford and help him compile his father's fragmented works into the Silmarillion and that was Guy Gavriel Kay. GGK credit's that year for influencing him to become a writer which is a great thing... especially because the alternative appears to have been a lawyer.
I enjoyed the Silmarillion as well but when I read it I had already read the LOTR five times so I was very interested in some of the references. It's definitely not for everyone.
I remember talking to someone that told me he had wanted to read the LOTR because he'd heard so many good things about it. He'd bought the first book and just couldn't get into it. I questioned him further and found out he'd bought the Silmarillion thinking it was the first book.
