Why do you read HoME?

[Mithadan]

(For those posting in Questionable Thread Titles, I'll propose my own repartee: Because it's not on television).

For those of you who actually read HoME, and I recognize many do not, why do you engage in this exercise? HoME is difficult. Some of it is archaic. It is certainly highly redundant. It is long. Many would argue that it is overly scholarly and inaccessible.

Yet, when I learned that these message boards would be "reborn" (I still haven't figured out what to call it, given the barrow theme here), I did not pick up LoTR, the Hobbit, or even the Silmarillion. Strange, perhaps, because I have not read any of them in a few years. Instead, the first book I grabbed was Morgoth's Ring, Home X. I got to thinking about my motives for doing so and, generally, why I read HoME, which is what prompted this thread.

HoME and I have a very long and changeable history, that I would be delighted to convey in detail. But first I'd like to hear your thoughts.