I absolutely adore Tolkien's style; his writing is just a joy to read, its the most elegant writing I've ever read. However, I find his stories boring and tedious, bogged down with detail and tangents and useless padding. He designed his world around his initial goal to develop his own language and poetry, and its to the detriment of what is a very compelling story, IMO. But nonetheless, even if his books, as books, are sort of mediocre in the forward-storytelling sense, I find them a joy to read; I often read random passages, even out of context, just for pleasure.