These new books are just longer versions of the Silmarillion stories. I did read the first one (Children of Hurin, I think) and decided to skip the rest. Espec

These new books are just longer versions of the Silmarillion stories. I did read the first one (Children of Hurin, I think) and decided to skip the rest. Especially if you've read the multiple variations of the stories in Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-Earth series, you'll be really, really familiar with the repetition.