My reading order would be

1- Beren and Lúthien
2- The Fall of Gondolin
3- The Children of Húrin

but really you can read them in any order and enjoy them.

I found this video which shows the HMH edition box set, very strange video, if anyone has seen a better review then please post it.

Thanks!

I always read Tolkien in publishing order. The books got published in that order for a reason

insurrbution wrote:

I always read Tolkien in publishing order. The books got published in that order for a reason

In this case they did not :(

Of course - I'm sure Christopher Tolkien had has reasons for publishing them in the order of CoH, B&L and FoG; otherwise he would've done them chronologically.

insurrbution wrote:

Of course - I'm sure Christopher Tolkien had has reasons for publishing them in the order of CoH, B&L and FoG; otherwise he would've done them chronologically.

I am working off memory here, but I recall the material Christopher had available was more complete for the earlier books - CoH is very close to a complete novel, B&L has major story chunks, and FoG was just fragments.

Ah that makes sense - if he had the same amount of material per book (like a rounded distribution) then I'm sure it would've been done chronologically