# The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

66 Hacker News commenters recommended The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and 11 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 15 years (5 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for its prose, its rich sense of place, and the way it keeps rewarding rereading. The most common caveat is slow passages, especially the songs and Tom Bombadil chapters.

## Why people recommend it

- Rewards repeated reading (4 comments): "The best books improve with rereading and slower reading. Tolkien fits this." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46391784)) "Every reread I found something new, something I hadn't considered before." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49801093)) "it's astonishing how it just keeps growing and changing with you" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46389922))
- Masterful, sublime English prose (3 comments): "mastery of English language comparable only to Cormac McCarthy and Joyce" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46395662)) "overall it's a tour-de-force, and really makes the prose come to life" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46387791)) "The command of the English Tolkien had is sublime." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46387882))
- Immersive world and sense of geography (2 comments): "I have literally read the book dozens of times before that and have never gotten so good a sense of the world's geography" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46389688)) "I inhaled Lord of the Rings on first reading. I lived inside it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47215935))
- Deep ideas and moral allegory (3 comments): "The story has a wide variety of allegorical symbolism pointing to a profound Catholic faith." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48298134)) "Unlike C. S. Lewis, Tolkien does not shove his message down your throat." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46634286)) "Lord of the rings is a great book because of the ideas" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48727659))

## What people warn about

- Slow songs and Tom Bombadil chapters (3 comments): "To this day, I doubt I could force myself to read dozens of pages of Tom Bombadil singing about trees." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47246712)) "rushing over the songs, boring parts with Tom etc is also how I managed to make it work for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46390793)) "advised me to skip the Tom Bombadil chapters entirely, it was good advice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48504263))
- Dull seriousness and landscape description (2 comments): "Frankly I thought even the book was terrible. The book was basically many pages of boring landscape description" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48798910)) "never liked it much because of the dead seriousness" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47214002))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hobbit.md): 49 recommend
- [Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dungeon-crawler-carl.md): 48 recommend
- [Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky](https://hackerapproved.com/p/harry-potter-and-the-methods-of-rationality.md): 19 recommend
- [Piranesi by Susanna Clarke](https://hackerapproved.com/p/piranesi.md): 12 recommend
- [Going Postal by Terry Pratchett](https://hackerapproved.com/p/going-postal.md): 11 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0261103253?tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/130825/9780261103252) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien", https://hackerapproved.com/p/lord-of-the-rings/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).