Balrog, Orthanc, Lothlorien and Minas Tirith

The last couple of weeks I've been reading The Lord of the Rings series. I'm just about done with The Two Towers at this point. I'd never read them before, but I was a big fan of the movies, despite little interest in the Fantasy genre, prior. What's really enjoyable, having seen the movies first, is that reading them is simultaneously making me appreciate Tolkein's craft, while also validating Peter Jackson's accomplishments in adapting the story to film. At the same time the reading is providing characters' background and purpose missing from the films due to the sheer amount of material that had to be sifted through, the action sequences make me appreciate the staggering scope and pace with which they were presented in the films even more so. They pass by with little fanfare in the text, and I'm thankful, as opposed to regretful, that I have the film sequences already in my head as a reference.