legolas is a slut whore

I’ve done my best to gather a set of resources to make Tolkien more accessible, to both disabled fans and those who struggle with denser and more academic writing. 

Free audiobooks:

The Hobbit

The Lord of the Rings:

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

Return of the King

Silmarillion: Link 1 Link 2

The Children of Hurin

Beren and Luthien

The Fall of Gondolin

Unfinished Tales

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

History of Middle-earth:

HoME 1: The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 

HoME 2: The Book of Lost Tales, Part 2

HoME 7: The Treason of Isengard

HoME 8: The War of the Ring

HoME 9*: The End of the Third Age

*There are two versions of HoME 9, Sauron Defeated and The End of the Third Age. TEotTA is the shorter version, as I’ve been unable to find the longer one.

Spark Notes for:

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

The Return of the King

Aids to reading the Silmarillion:

Silmarillion Chapter Summaries by the Silmarillion Writers Guild

SuperSummary’s Silmarillion Study Guide

An animated map of Beleriand showing the events of the First Age years 1-475

A Timeline of Arda

The Tolkien Road Podcast read out and then discuss each chapter of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion

Tolkien Society’s FAQ

@expertsofarda‘s post of people who can answer questions and help you understand the books

Seeing as there’s likely to be an influx of new fans in the next few months, it seemed like a good moment to come back to this post. I want to welcome new people to the fandom and provide a few aids for those who might be thinking about reading Tolkien for the first time!

I don’t mean to insinuate that you have to read the books to be a fan, but if you are interested then hopefully this might help you out. (I would, however, appreciate if people didn’t send me any asks about TROP as I’m choosing not to interact with it.)

With that goal in mind, I’ve fixed or altered some of the links above and decided to tack on additional resources.

Audiobooks:

@zitasaurusrex let me know about Phil Dragash’s unabridged Lord of the Rings audiobook which also incorporates Howard Shore’s musical score from the films

@tolkien-feels​​ posted links to the BBC radio drama version of LoTR, including a version with captions

@absynthe–minded​​ brought my attention to LearningAlly, a charity that provides audiobooks to disabled people in the USA. Unfortunately there’s several caveats; you have to be in the USA or a US citizen, you have to provide print proof of disability and there’s a small fee. However, it has audiobooks of many of Tolkien’s works including some that I couldn’t find elsewhere online.

Read the books for free online

The Hobbit

Lord of the Rings

Silmarillion (that link only allows you to ‘borrow’ the book for an hour, but you can also try this link)

The Children of Hurin

The Fall of Gondolin*

Beren and Luthien* (formatting slightly weird, just in that the page margins are gone)

History of Middle Earth all 12 Volumes* (formatting slightly weird but readable)

Unfinished Tales*

The Letters of JRR Tolkien*

*these ones are PDFs. 

I chose the ones with the best formatting, because there’s nothing more annoying than trying to read a thousand pages of badly formatted writing. If any of these links are broken, you can try searching pdfdrive.com or archive.org. Alternatively, novel80.com has LOTR, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The Children of Hurin, HoME 2, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and a few others unrelated to Middle Earth.

Let me know if a link breaks. I’ll end this post with a read more, and if a link breaks or new resources turn up then I’ll add them under the cut.

None of these links should require a download, but the PDFs can be downloaded (or converted to epub and sent to your Kindle) if you wish. I’ve checked them all out personally but remember to use caution and common sense when downloading from the internet. Pdfdrive is a safe site, but occasionally there are pop ups that try to trick you into clicking on fake download links. Only download the pdfs from pdfdrive itself, from the buttons that look like this:

[ID in alt text.]

But what if you want to go absolutely nuts about Arda?

A great post was made several years ago with a list of resources for Tolkien fans. Unfortunately some of it is it of date now; most of the blogs listed are inactive and the book links no longer work. However, the sections on references and languages are still valid and incredibly useful!

Want to know more about the living creatures of Arda? Check out:

@outofangband​’s series on Flora, Fauna and Geography/Environment of Arda

Flora of Middle Earth by Walter and Graham Judd

Fish in Middle Earth

Want to go feral about the land itself? Try:

The Atlas of Middle Earth

@ambarto’s geology of arda tag and Middle-earth geology resources masterpost

A climate scientist’s model of the climate of Middle Earth

@mapsburgh‘s posts on The Consequences of Making Middle Earth Round and In Defence of Tolkien’s Mountains

Concerning the Arkenstone

Also, while I’m here I’m going to boost @silmarillionwritersguild, @antiracist-tolkien, @hobbitlotrpoc ​, @fyeahsilmpocs​ (inactive), @brighter-arda. Feel free to tag your favourite or most useful Tolkien blogs in the notes.

(Cut here: if I find new resources or the links to audiobooks/pdfs break, I’ll add new links here. I’m keeping it under the line so that I can edit it at will.)