[rightwingreligiousfanatic]

The Appendices in Return of the King have a lot of interesting stuff as well, like the Tale of Years, explaining who had which ring, what happened to Aragorn and Arwen, Sam, Merry & Pippin, etc.

Thanks! I forgot about those and must re-read them pronto!

My mother is a big Tolkien fan and gave me her copies of the Lost Tales, and said the same thing about them, that they are rather involved and heavy wading... So I'm saving them for later...

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

I would recommend wading into the Lost Tales right after finishing the Silmarillion. It helps to have the final version of the stories fresh in your mind, to see how different the first version was! :)