I read The Silmarillion as a young teenager, after having read [b:The Lord of the Rings|34|The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1)|J.R.R. Tolkien|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156043001s/34.jpg|3204327] through a few times, and recalled liking it, but did not recall very much of it--and, as I discovered listening to it this time around, the parts that I recalled were not quite accurate. I won't review the actual story here, but just the audio version of this work.

The narration is well done. It has the feel of a wise teacher relating history and lore to a throng of willing ears. Also, it allows one to focus on the stories rather than pondering the proper pronunciation of the names of characters and places mentioned in the text.

The hard part of listening to a book like The Silmarillion is that one can easily find one's mind wandering. Although mostly interesting, there are some parts that, while adding to the respect one must give to Tolkein for his craft and perniciousness, are quite dull. I listened to the bulk of this book in my car while driving on the highway at night, which worked well because I did not have much else to distract me. However, the times when I listened while performing another task that required even minimal attention, I found that I had to repeatedly go back to an earlier part because the story had moved in an unknown or unexpected direction. While this is somewhat true of other audiobooks, the complexity of the story and the similarity of the names of some of the characters made it even more difficult to follow at times.

This is a definite "must-listen" for anyone who has enjoyed Tolkein's more popular works and has a taste for more Middle Earth.