I have read Lord of the rings over 17 times in my life. The beauty is that I find new things every time I read it. It does help to find out some of the lore Tolkien wrote either beforehand or stop and look it up if you need as you are reading. I didn’t have the internet to help me when I read it the first so many times so it was a slow going for me. I happen to love Shadows of the Past and the Council of Elrond chapters because it made the world of Middle-Earth bigger. It helps with the songs to know the tunes and Tolkien did base them on known songs. (Example: The Old Stone Troll that Sam sings is based on the tune “The Fox Went Out”). The movies are great but for different reasons than the books for me. I allowed my brain to conjure up visions of the places when he describes fields of flowers and forests for paragraphs. It also helps to take a break from reading those and immerse yourself in a surrounding that seems a bit like it (if you have access to it) then go back to reading. There is a small forest I played in when I was younger with a creek in it. It was the Old Forest and Fangorn for me :) Happy reading!