Reddit reviews The Silmarillion

You should read the "The Silmarillion."

This is lineage of major characters in The Lord of the Rings series. For more of this sort of painfully-detailed history and world-crafting, check out The Silmarillion.

sorry man, but you're missing a few things

You may want to check out The Silmarillion

The Silmarillion Great book!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Silmarillion-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0345325818

Highly lyrical writing style like the Bible: Check.
Creation Myth like the Bible: Check
A "Council" of Deities like the Bible: Check
Better Movies than the Bible: Check and Check

The Silmarillion is a book about the origins of the middle earth universe.

I'm going to interpret your question a little bit differently and provide some books that are not directly RPG related but will help you to be a better role-player or Game Master. Then, I will finish off with some more RPG specific suggestions.

The essential reads are the following:

• All of HP Lovecraft
  
• Anything you can read from Tolkien
  
• Robert E. Howards stories about Conan the Cimmerian
  
• Fantasy/Sci-Fi Art Collections (subjective based upon the styles that inspire you and that reflect your campaigns)
  
• Collections of Legend or Mythology
  
• A book or two about acting and/or improvisation, I recommend Impro: Improvisation and the Theater
  
  For GM-specific materials, I really love the spirit conveyed by Dungeon World and Fate Core (and the Fate System Toolkit for that matter). If you learn nothing else from Dungeon World, learn the GM principles and how to set up Fronts. Fronts (or something similar) are the way you should be preparing as a GM that very few other books convey. The Alexandrian has a lot of amazing materials. I know that Play Unsafe was recommended here, but it was a little short and basic for my taste... much of the same principles will be covered by reading the other recommended texts in my post. If you absolutely must learn about improvisation as a skill in and of itself, read Impro. The author of Play Unsafe drew heavily from this text and most of the truly unique ideas can be found within Impro.

>i honestly found the Lord of the Rings books to be too much of a chore to read.

The Lord of the Rings books are child's play compared to The Silmarillion!

There is.

It isn't a conventional story, though, more like a fictional history book.

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