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

What hackers pick instead

• The Hobbit by J.R.R. TolkienPeople recommend it as an accessible classic that introduces Middle-earth well and suits children and adults alike. Critics say some illustrated editions, especially the Tove Jansson art, don't match readers' imagery of the story.49recommend
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• Going Postal by Terry PratchettPeople recommend it as a sharp, funny Discworld novel with a satirical edge, and several suggest it as a good entry point to the series.11recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 83 comments. Each links to the original.

1. I have literally read the book dozens of times before that and have never gotten so good a sense of the world's geography

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High”

2. rushing over the songs, boring parts with Tom etc is also how I managed to make it work for me

   Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High”

3. The story has a wide variety of allegorical symbolism pointing to a profound Catholic faith.

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Magnifica Humanitas (Encyclical Letter)”

4. The best books improve with rereading and slower reading. Tolkien fits this.

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High”

5. Every reread I found something new, something I hadn't considered before.

   Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “AI Has No Wisdom and Neither Will You”

6. mastery of English language comparable only to Cormac McCarthy and Joyce

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High”

7. Unlike C. S. Lewis, Tolkien does not shove his message down your throat.

   Recommends · Jan 2026

8. overall it's a tour-de-force, and really makes the prose come to life

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High”

9. it's astonishing how it just keeps growing and changing with you

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High”

10. I inhaled Lord of the Rings on first reading. I lived inside it.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit”

11. For me it is one of those books I re-read every few years

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “As 'Dorian Gray' ages, its relevance only grows”

12. Lord of the rings is a great book because of the ideas

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Reflections on Software Engineering in the Age of AI”

13. The command of the English Tolkien had is sublime.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High”

14. Frankly I thought even the book was terrible. The book was basically many pages of boring landscape description

    Criticizes · Jul 2026 · in “Hollywood's spent 25 years chasing the wrong lessons from The Lord of the Rings”

15. To this day, I doubt I could force myself to read dozens of pages of Tom Bombadil singing about trees.

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “What Are Your Guilty Displeasures?”

16. advised me to skip the Tom Bombadil chapters entirely, it was good advice

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings”

17. never liked it much because of the dead seriousness

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit”

18. The Minas Tirith part of the ending of LOTR hits hard as a 50-year-old man, but as a kid, it was just a lot of pomp.

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “I Miss Terry Pratchett”

19. There hasn't been an American-made movie since Lord of the Rings that has compelled me to go see it in the theater.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “About 10% of AMC movie showings sell zero tickets. This site finds them”

20. People who don't read the book with a little thought can just read a superficial action adventure

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed”

21. They are very different. But the editions also differ in whether they include the appendices

    Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “The Perils of ISBN”

22. which is something I remember using to revisit parts of the story when I first read it

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class”

23. I enjoyed it in tweens and high school, couldn't get into it again in later life.

    Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High”

24. It's also my favorite part of the book, and definitely not something I'd skip.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Bombadil: Property-based testing for web UIs by Antithesis”

25. Great as The Lord of the Rings is, IMO it has structural problems as books.

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings”

26. poems and songs have much more sens and much more beautiful in original

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?”

27. there's something special about The Lord of the Rings that is not there

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Response to AI slop is from Robin Williams”

28. And then, there are the gems: War of the Worlds, and Lord of the Rings.

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Singapore’s National Library Board offers micropayments to build reading habits”

29. As an extended allegory for society and technology it absolutely sucks

    Mixed · Apr 2026 · in “Yggdrasil Network”

30. Tolkien, who is arguably the most influential SFF writer of all time.

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Book Prizes Don't Work How You Think”

31. It is truly a tale full or heroes and several acts of great courage.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes"”

32. I've been thoroughly delighted by the interlude of poems and songs

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?”

33. I went to the recent re-screenings of the Lord of the Rings movies

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis”

34. they aren't the foundation of an entire genre the way the book is

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “An Uncomplicated Man”

35. I'm glad the novel could afford more space for someone like him

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings”

36. The Lord of the Rings (the god knows how many times re-read)

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?”

37. Beautiful fold out map, but the cover was cheap and flimsy.

    Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “Publishers Killed the Paperback, Then Blamed Readers”

38. It is amazing how Lord of the Rings persists in the world.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “JRR Tolkien reads from The Hobbit for 30 Minutes (1952)”

39. There are exceptions, like the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “The only technology that died more times than VR is AI”

40. with my all time favourite being The Lord of the Rings

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Short Little Difficult Books”