Agreed. My experience of Tolkien was reading the hobbit (which I remembered from an animated version in my childhood) without realizing that a whole trilogy would follow.

Learning that I could return to middle earth, I was excited, and devoured the lord of the rings trilogy soon after the hobbit.

Then I learned that I could spend some more time in middle earth with the Silmarilion, so I dove into that next. Total buzzkill. I quit a little way in, my enthusiasm for middle earth mostly drained.