There's a collection of his short stories that my Mom had on the bookshelf (along with LOTR and the Hobbit) that I read and re-read a number of times; less fantasy and seemed more in the vein of old English folk tales (Farmer Gilles of Ham, for instance was one of them) which I did enjoy. Was also reading the Narnia books at the time. Good memories.
I've managed to cobble together most of the Tolkien reference books that dealt with the behind the scenes stuff with LOTR and of course, the elder tales as well as the Silmarillion (that was a difficult one to get thru, reads more like a genealogy crossed with a Bible of sorts, very indepth). The man was an amazing fantasy writer, to be sure.
I have to say that I found 'Unfinished Tales of Numenor...' to be one of my favorites of his work; the mythology surrounding Middle Earth is astounding once you get a grasp on it. Some would say that a lot of the 'beginning' times are formulaic and unoriginal but I disagree. I mean sure, there's elements of our own mythology (the pantheon of gods, the creation of the heavens and the earth mirror that of Norse mythology etc, etc) but so what? He gave it a new take that I found engaging and it held my interest all the way to the end.
I just added this book, Children of Hurin (which is covered in part in the Unfinished Tales iirc) and Unfinished Tales to my Kindle wish list.