LOTR...Yes or no?

So I'm thinking of reading the 3 over the next month or so...

Good idea? I've never seen the movies or anything and the references to LOTR are getting annoying. ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY WALK INTO MORDOR HURR and I have no idea what that shit is about.

Do I read them? Is it worth it? Also going to college next month, any books I MUST read before I leave?

Also, I'm gonna read Flowers for Algernon because I remember a loonnnng time ago (like at least 8-10 years ago)I read an excerpt/short story and I was really interested in it. I want to read the whole thing.

I problem with the council is that Tolkien had to introduce each character like they do in the Iliad:  by detailing his entire family tree back for hundreds of years.  The only reason it was in the Iliad was because people listening to that story were actually related to those people and cheered at their names.  But with the LoTR they are just random, hard to pronounce names that take up space.  I bet if you took out all those names you would shed like 15 pages from the books.