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It seems there are a bunch of (both loosely and tightly) related books in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings genre:

Lord of the Rings

The Hobbit

The Simarillion

The History of Middle-Earth

The Fall of Numenor

Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth

The Children of Hurin

The Tale of Beren and Luthien

The Fall of Gondolin

Can anyone tell me whether these books can be read in -more or less- a chronological order (and if so, what the proper ordering from first to last should be)?

Personally, I would say to read The Hobbit then The Lord of the Rings and the appendices.  Then, the rest of the books can be read in virtually any order.  The books after The Hobbit and LOFR were not completed for publication by Mr. Tolkein but were edited for publication by his son, Christopher.  They are not as entertaining to read (I have not read all of them myself) and, in some respects, read more like histories or dry books of mythology.

Thank you, TKGS.

Question: I saw all 6 of the LOTR/Hobbit movies, and it seemed like they alluded to a lot of presumed knowledge/information not explicitly covered, which I hoped was covered in the books.  Is that so?

Also, regarding the appendices in LOTR: Are these extensive appendices which gie background information?

Thank you, TKGS.

Question: I saw all 6 of the LOTR/Hobbit movies, and it seemed like they alluded to a lot of information which I hoped was covered in the books.  Is that so?

Also, regarding the appendices in LOTR: Are these extensive appendices which gie background information?

Absolutely.  But when you read the books, try to put the movies out of your mind.  The movies are loosly based on the books and the overall goal in the stories is the same.  But they are not the same stories.

The Hobbit movies tried (poorly, in my opinion) to weave into them some of the background of the stories from The Lord of the Rings book that had been left out of the movies.  You'll find the books to be both entertaining and a credible story but very different from the movies.

You will find The Hobbit reads like a children's book in some aspects (though nothing like modern children's books), but it is still very good.  The Lord of the Rings reads like an epic adventure that follows up on The Hobbit.  Make sure that you read the prologue found at the front of The Fellowship of the Ring as it recaps The Hobbit but also provides more information to help understand the world of Middle Earth.

The appendicies were added for two reasons.  First, when the books were originally published in the United States, the publisher, thinking that they would not do well, did not bother to copyright the story.  When they sold very well, Penguin Books started publishing the books since they were in the public domain.  The British publisher then asked Tolkein to make a few technical corrections and then add the appendicies which include background information that fans were starting to ask about.  Because of corrections and the addition of the appendicies, they were able to copyright the new book and, with a forward by the author specifically asking people not to purchase the unauthorized versions, Penguin found much lower demand for their books and stopped publishing the public domain version.

While the appendicies give quite a bit of background, I don't think they would be easily understood without the general story of the books in mind.  They are not really overly extensive but they are definitely interesting.

If you enjoy reading stories set in pre-industrial ages where there are wizards, elves, dwarves, men, halflings, orcs, wargs (wild wolves), monsters, Trolls, royalty, commoners, swords and spears, battles, and intrigues, you will enjoy this story.