Sauron Defeated

I have to admit book nine is the first History of Middle Earth (HoME) book that I haven't finished. I read about 385 pages out of about 440. The last fifty odd pages were very dry, almost textbook-ish, reading. I skimmed through it and got the general idea of what it was about. In general, the book was very dry compared to the other books in the series. It was in three parts: the conclusion of The Lord of the Rings, the Norton Club Papers, and the Fall of Numenor. The Norton Club Papers was particularly difficult to read, it being different than anything else Tolkien or his son Christopher published so far. Thank goodness for the Tolkien Professor's podcast on this book. While I haven't finished all seventeen episodes yet, it really helped me a lot in understanding the Norton Club papers. I found the majority of the book to be dry and not as interesting as the first eight in the series. Even though I've been a big fanboy of these books, this one nearly had me stopped in my tracks.

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