Как читать Толкина в Оригинале ( JRR Tolkien )⁠⁠

А я дошёл. The Complete Sherlock Holmes у меня в шкафу на видном месте и нередко извлекается для почитания. :)

Вот образчик "Холмса" (самое начало "Собаки Баскервилей"):

“Really, Watson, you excel yourself,” said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. “I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.”

He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had made to give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval. He now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then with an expression of interest he laid down his cigarette, and carrying the cane to the window, he looked over it again with a convex lens.

Судите сами. На мой взгляд, грамматика и лексика "ВК" попроще будут.

Пропускайте предложения, которых вы не понимаете - примерно так, как это делают переводчики. Прекрасный совет, прекрасный!

Вовсе не уверена насчет Upper-intermediate - у меня он был, мягко говоря, ниже, когда я читала. Само построение предложений очень простое, стиль кристальный совершенно - это вам не какой-нибудь Конан Дойль, который заворачивает в три наката. Какой 19 век, чувак?! Книга написана в середине 20го. Но тем, у кого проблемы с tidings и farewell, наверное и впрямь не стоит браться - тут беда не в уровне английского, а в кругозоре и словарном запасе родного языка.