Book # 7 - The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings Book 3 of 3) by J.R.R. Tolkien

One of the more interesting things about The Return of the King, at least to me, is the 100+ pages of appendices at the end of it. It isn't that the information in there is riveting... I'm just fascinated that it even exists and that Tolkein felt compelled to include it all. In a way it just shows how devoted he was to developing the entire world of Middle Earth to the tiniest detail. But really... it is just so much an overload of information that it is kind of comical. Though in a way reading the whole thing is essential to getting the whole Lord of the Rings experience. First off it includes the story of Aragorn's and Arwen's relationship which is arguably very important to the story and is barely mentioned in the main text. It also includes more details on the backstories of the dwarves of The Hobbit and some of Gandalf's motivations for helping the dwarves get rid of Smaug. It also includes a summary of over six thousand years of Middle Earth history and complete family histories of major hobbits, the kings and stewards of Gondor and the kings of Rohan. After that it includes super detailed descriptions of several languages of Middle Earth and exhaustive details of how to pronounce Elvish words.

I'm not sure if it is despite or because of the ridculous appendices, I've got to give it an A+. As a whole, The Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite books.