I remember seeing
The Book of Lost Tales 1 when it was first released, when my father got it from a book club to which he belonged. Though I was well familiar with
The Hobbit and
LOTR by that time,
Lost Tales was incomprehensible, as I hadn't even read
The Silmarillion then. Although I have, of course, broadened my Tolkien horizons since by reading the
Silm and
Unfinished Tales many times over, I haven't had any real desire to pick up
Lost Tales again, nor any of the
HOME series dealing with First and Second Age matters.
I have actually bought the four
HOME volumes about
LOTR though, and I find them quite illuminating. Knowing Tolkien's early ideas for the story really does give me an appreciation for the eventual 'finished' product. Also, I've found the answers to some questions I've had.
For instance, I had wondered if Gollum hadn't really committed suicide, consciously or not, when he 'slipped' into the Crack. I found Tolkien had considered and rejected that very idea.
Another interesting tidbit is seeing that in an early concept Tom Bombadil and Farmer Maggot were some sort of kindred spirits, and that Maggot wasn't a pure Hobbit.
Of the other
HOME books, the only one I have read (though I don't own) is
The Peoples of Middle-earth. There's some good stuff in there. I might eventually get the whole series, but my money miserliness is holding me back. Them things don't come cheap.
