Behold
my first Books post. It's also my first thread.
It's not very impressive, is it? Hardly what you'd call 'intimidating'. The people I found intimidating at the time were those who knew more than I did, which included practically everyone. At one point Sharku cowed me just by posting an extract from a dictionary, which I took to show a preternatural knowledge of etymology. Ridiculous, isn't it? Most of what I know about Tolkien I've learned either from members here or from books that they mentioned or recommended, and I still couldn't keep up with people like obloquy and Saulotus if they were active.
The language in books doesn't have to be academic. A lot of the more knowledgeable members happen to feel more comfortable in a scholarly idiom, either by training or because their professions require them to write formal English. It doesn't mean that nobody wants to see a more relaxed style, it's just that in some of the discussions precision of expression is very important, and I at least find it hard to be informal and precise at the same time. The important thing in Books is that the thinking should go deeper and be based on more knowledge than it has to be in N&N. If you've got a really interesting point, nobody will care about split infinitives or dangling prepositions: it's the quality of the ideas that counts.
Most importantly, we've all been new. Everyone has to make a first post and everyone has had to get used to posting on the forum. More to the point, everyone is a little intimidated by the challenge of Books because it's a demanding forum. It always has been for as long as I've been a member. If you can rise to the challenge it's a very rewarding place to post, and if you can't then nobody wants to stop you reading it. It's certainly cheaper than buying the mass of additional Tolkien literature that's out there. When I first arrived I didn't think I could make a valuable contribution, but to my amazement there were those who disagreed. You never know what the reaction will be until you try, unless of course your shiny new thread is 'who's the best dwarf?' but you know about that already.
I know I've been absent for a long time, but even back when I was here every day I didn't post on every Books thread. There have always been those subjects on which I can't comment, but fortunately there's usually someone who can. If you pick your ground as Child suggested you can ease yourself into the discussions and your knowledge will catch up. I spend a lot of time tracking down quotations, and it can be fun. Sometimes I forget all about the post and instead get caught up in a passage I'd only looked up to check my facts. That's one of the things that only happens to me when I join in on Books.
What I'm trying to say is give Books a try. The worst that can happen is that your post embarrasses you much later on, as that one of mine above does whenever I read it.