I don’t think I’ll find much disagreement here. I’ve read the books more times that I can count. At least once a year for the last 20 years and many times before that. I’ve memorized so many parts that, when I listen to it on audiobook, I can say it along with the narrator.
And yet it can still give me a lump in my throat and make my eyes get misty. I’m just at The Field of Cormallen and it still gives me goosebumps.
I have to agree of course. It remains my favorite book of all time and has been since I first read it in 6th grade. The depth of world building is really beyond compare until a few stories much later on inspired by the Good Professor.
I think you will find disagreement with that.
This is far too subjective. I know some people who really dislike LOTR.
Personally, I love the books and the Peter Jackson movies. I am a LOTR nerd and there are some on this message board who far, far, far surpass me in this. Lots of fun to get them talking about it.
I think Tolkien’s world building is unsurpassed. Just crazy detailed and good
Still, it’s not for everyone and some will disagree.
Just a few of us, I’m posting from my home office and sitting behind me is this bookshelf. Now with more books moved to it, in fact.
click picture to expand
The Silmarilion is also one of my all time favourites. I usually follow with it after finishing LOTR. I’ve not read it as many times as LOTR but I find it just as moving. One day I hope to see a movie with Glaurung emerging flanked by balrogs.
Here’s something that I posted in 2018:
I have always had a hard time getting into Tolkien. Just too sprawling, long, and of too little interesting or meaningful content. It’s like sifting through a mountain of straw to get a small nugget of gold, when other novels have a much better gold-to-straw ratio.
But given that Tokien has a big fanbase maybe I’m just not culture-tuned enough.
Depends how many stories are one of the best. I prefer the Hobbit over LotR but it’s up there somewhere. Too long for me to enjoy it thoroughly. It might still fit in my top 100 list but I have a lot of short stories in there.
I have the green Hobbit and the red LOTR on my bookshelf in my home office. 
Never read it. I bought it once, loaned it to a friend, and never got it back.
I’m not really into this kind of fantasy, but I admit I’m curious.
Yeah, well, you know, it is just, like, all in all, not bad, considering, man.
Watching the Peter Jackson movies might be best. The movies are quite good.
There is lots more in the books but if you do not want to read them all the movies are not bad as a stand-in.
I’m always impressed by the amount of backstory that is apparently shoved in there when I see conversations on some small detail:
“Well, in the third age of Himmerton Gandolf the Teal (as he was known at the time) incountered Hibblebub, who claimed to be one of the dark gods of Gringledoor but was actually a Tigwag created by Zelgir the Insolent…”
It is like reading a Wookiepedia entry on the career of Salicious Crumb’s uncle’s college roommate, except Star Wars had a couple of hundred novels to cram in all that info and LotR has only, what, five?
Some people will dislike anything- ice cream, puppies, apple pie- anything.
But of course- people who are sub-literate will struggle- the book is long.
I think it is the best fantasy trilogy ever- and the best fantasy worldbuilding ever.
The Jackson films are the best three part series ever- and yes I include The Godfather.
The three Hobbit films should have been two films- but even so Film one was pretty good. The padding to make it three films got too damn silly.
Yep- world building. Middle Earth is REAL.
I loved all the movies in the trilogy.
Yes, one of the reasons I don’t tend to like high fantasy is the tedious world-building, the taking forever to set up the story, and I know he did a lot of that.
But I’m still curious. I mean, I read Bleak House, surely I have the patience for LOTR.
Heh…most of my family thinks I am a super LOTR nerd because I have the Slimarillion. I’ll refer them to this post the next time they make fun of me. 
I also have this one which I think was written/compiled by a Doper but it has been so long I am not sure if that is correct or who it was.
To be fair, there are several repeats on that bookshelf.
I disagree. It’s just “a” book, there are many better,
And don’t call me Shirley.
But you can call me surly.
Ah, the straight dope elitism. Whatever the hive mind says is good, we all must agree or get labeled aa “sub-literate” and called puppy haters.
Maybe we just don’t like the same things. It is allowed.
I actually prefer Tolkien’s approach in LOTR (and The Hobbit) to the approach that many modern writers of high fantasy take: they’ll show us a scene involving one character in one part of the world, and then, before we have a chance to figure out where we are or why we should care, they switch to the point of view of a different character in a completely different location, and then to yet another one, and it takes a long time before we get a feel for who everyone is and how they fit together and why we should care.
Tolkien, on the other hand, shows us everything from Frodo’s point of view in the first volume, and the new people and places we encounter are new to him too. We do get shifts in point of view in the second and third volumes, but not nearly as frequently as is the style in more modern works, and we’re always with characters we already know and care about. There certainly is quite a bit of scene-setting in the beginning, and it takes a while for the story to really get started, but that helps us to be familiar with what Frodo (the POV character) is familiar with. I find that Tolkien’s way of telling the story helps me immerse myself in it and vicariously experience it through the eyes of the characters.
YO!
I’ve never been able to read the whole thing. I give up in complete boredom somewhere in the middle and never go back for a decade or two. Just not my mug of Oolong.
“Sub-literate” my ass.