37 Reasons To Read LOTR

Why people keep reading Tolkien year after year

To celebrate Tolkien’s birthday, I asked people online to share why they love reading The Lord of the Rings. From nearly 200 replies, I selected 37 that reflect the profound and personal impact Tolkien’s stories have had on readers of all ages and backgrounds (make sure to read all the way to the end of the list, there are some really meaningful replies).

For me, this book (which I only picked up for the first time less than 6 years ago) is on another level when it comes to stories. There is something deeply human and haunting about the way Tolkien shaped his world and characters — the best way I can describe it is that it feels like coming home and yet leaves you with an ache for another world, something that you have a faint memory of and yet deeply long for to be true and real. It taps into the greater story we are all living in with beauty, tragedy and hope — and it has and still is shaping the way I see and understand the world!

If you haven’t yet read through LOTR, this is a great inexpensive copy to buy to start off the adventure and journey… I hope you enjoy the comments below and it encourages you towards picking up the book again… or maybe for the very first time!

PS. I have a Tolkien YouTube channel that explores these amazing stories with inspiring reflections on them and interviews from Tolkiens scholars and authors.

1. Because when I read it my inner world is baptized anew.

2. Tolkien's whole world is aligned to foundational values. The trees may walk, but the reality is rooted in the Good (as opposed to evil), the True (as opposed to the false), and the Beautiful (as opposed to the grotesque.) That is what they strive to preserve, at great cost.

3. It always gives me a frisson of the "numinous" - of the wonderful & uncanny just lurking beyond the horizon or behind the trees.

4. I remember hearing decades ago that the more we re-read quality literature, the more deeply it reads us. Each rereading of The Lord of the Rings broadens my understanding of Tolkien's profoundly pro-human perspective, and calls forth greater empathy, interconnectedness, and hope.

5. A story about resilience and how even an ordinary person can save the world by overcoming adversity and temptation. That’s the reason I believe this story is unique. The main protagonist isn’t the strongest character, but someone small who bears a great burden.

6. Because it gave me true peace, I could escape to a world where I felt I belonged.

7. Because it’s a story of hope against all odds. Hope when there is no reason to have hope.

8. The Lord of the Rings transcends fantasy: it is a profound meditation on courage, sacrifice, and the resilience of hope in the face of overwhelming darkness. For me, is not just a story; it’s a guide on life, teaching that friendship and perseverance matter more than power.

9. Beyond it being a story of bravery, of hope through despairing circumstance, of living up to the expectations of you… It is also just an excellent example of male friendship.

10. It gives me courage.

11. It is the world I was looking for before I knew what I was looking for, and when I found it, I knew that was the place I longed for. It’s the historical version of the faerie world where everything is realistic. I was a child when I found it and it has stayed with me ever since.

12. It’s completely different from anything made nowadays it’s like an old story passed down and the perfect adventure epic

13. It shines with an inner light. That is the only way I can describe it.

14. I was raised in a Christian home, but in some real and true ways, my heart found heaven by wandering through Middle-earth.

15. You are transported into a world that is so beautiful that you understand why the stakes are so high to save it and it leaves you with the feeling that you too would have joined the fight to save it. The friendship, camaraderie, the love, the strength of the characters have.

16. Excellent prose, layers and layers of themes, deep characters, love of Nature permeates the whole thing.

17. The exquisite language that encompasses everything from simple pub talk to that of the elevated legendary heroes of old. The prose, the dialogues, the poems; the echoes of history, myths, and folk tales.

18. So many things… but one I’ve felt more strongly recently is themes of male friendship and vulnerability. With a modern onslaught of “toxic masculinity”, I think LOTR and even the hobbit offer a wonderful position of men being strong and courageous…..but also scared. I love seeing the characters often speak to their male friendship with love and compassion, instead of just being gruff and rough “with the boys”. While it hasn’t done it on its own, I think LOTR has helped me be more of a loving friend to my male friends and has encouraged me to be strong but also vulnerable, even in the middle of crisis.

19. It’s a return to moral clarity. The bad is portrayed as pure evil, the good is portrayed as unambiguously just. Sure, there’s some grey areas—as every story must have—but even in the wrestling of ambition, there’s an acknowledgement of what should be compared to what has been corrupted.

20. LotR reminds me that there is still good, light, and beauty in this world.

21. I love the interplay of homey things, sublime beauty, and heroism. Also, the moral clarity.

22. For me, I appreciated it so much the more after reading The Inklings biography by Phillip and Carol Zeleski. For Tolkien to lose his father, travel from South Africa to England, lose his mother, survive the trenches of World War I, and through it all hold fast to the stories and myths of old, and cling to a childlike sense of awe and wonder for this world and his abiding joy that stemmed from his Catholic Faith? People should pay very close attention to what a man like that has to say.

23. I love them because when I look at my own struggles, I don’t just see lonely little Alex trudging along. I see Frodo and Sam walking with him through the Plains of Gorgoroth. When I lament the injustices of the ruling class, I’m reminded that the King will have a crown again and everything sad will one day become untrue. When I lose a loved one, they remind me that death was the one secret gift given to man by Iluvatar. In short, I guess, I love them because they bring the clarity of hope through myth.

24. I love Lord of the Rings because it made me read again, I love it because Tolkien fought in WWI, the most horrific war in modern history, but he came back home and wrote this gem (at the time of another horrific war) which is bursting with beauty and hope, I love it because its spine is a simple character for whom the most important things were his home, his friends, his garden, and “the stories that matter”, I love it because every word of it is truer than a true story, and I love it because Faramir saves Éowyn from self-destructive darkness… and because Tolkien reminds us that, despite doing everything right and taking the Ring all the way to Mount Doom, fate needs to intervene for the task to be over.

25. The richness and beauty of the world presented to us, even as it is under attack. The sense of goodness that is lived rather than merely performed. The willingness of the protagonists to lose everything rather than give in to Sauron. A king who knows what it means to rule wisely. A wizard who gives counsel rather than bending others to his will. Ordinary people accepting impossible tasks. The sense that goodness can be known and is worth fighting for.

26. Moral role models. How they think and act gives me a good example. Not just having the correct moral beliefs, but the grace and harmony by which they execute it. Even Sauron is helpful for me in that it shows how his psychology traps his mind into a small world of assuming others are only motivated by power like him. Also, the transformations all the characters undergo.

27. I love reading The Lord of the Rings because it reminds me that the small things matter. A walk across a field, a meal shared, a fire tended—these are the moments that carry us. Tolkien’s story is full of battles and journeys, but what stays with me are the quiet gestures of friendship and the courage to keep going when the road feels long. That’s why I think it’s worth reading: it shows us that ordinary life, lived with care, is already part of a greater story.

28. Lord of the Rings shows our world as it actually is (despite being set in a fantasy world). Everything in Middle-Earth operates exactly as it should, exactly in correspondence with how our world works metaphysically. You read the story…and you know it is TRUE, on a level so deep you can't put it into words.

29. You’ll come away from it changed in some way, this masterful storytelling literally creates a before and after version of you. It’s the only way I can explain it. It’s that good.

30. I love it for the reverence it shows towards nature. People hyperbolically complain about Tolkien spending 3 pages describing a tree, but those lengthy passages full of nothing but nature are some of the greatest moments in literature, to me. Imagine being so enraptured with a tree you could spend whole paragraphs meditating on it? What a freaking JOY. That is how I aspire to live my life. I am in love with Tolkien's reverence for nature, & it comes through in such aching brilliance in LotR.

31. LOTR shows that despite evil, there is good, despite grief, there is hope, and despite failure there is redemption. It shows a world that is not at its height - throughout the story we see crumbling ruins and characters look back on previous ages, remembering great deeds of old. Yet still there are those who pursue the true, the good, and the noble. In this we can see something of our own world; although much has been lost over time, we may still strive for goodness in a world that is full of evil.

32. Because while it's dark and violent and sad, it's also full of light and hope, which we need, now more than ever.

33. Tolkien’s epic helped me understand the Bible more clearly — the kind of narrative it really is.

34. Its acknowledgement of tragedy. Lady Arwen must choose between her beloved and her family—for, literally, eternity, so far as anyone knows. Frodo finds he can’t destroy the Ring; its power is too great. Once the Ring is destroyed, Frodo cannot be healed by any power in Middle Earth from the wound he suffered; and the novel ends with parting. Not everyone gets their happily-ever-after.

35. It engages my imagination like no other book. Perfect balance of revealing enough detail for the reader to construct their own internal emotional picture of what is going on.

36. It is helpful to see that goodness is not necessarily easy at all. It encourages me to have heart.

37. I suppose it has to do with the feeing of advancement; of moving forward through the mystery. Making progress in a world of struggle. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s been my experience.

---