[Lord Killjoy]

The icewind dale trilogy is a great set of books but you won't get a feel of the realms from them. even less of a feel from the dark elf they are to confined. If you want to truly experience the realms in all there vastness read the following:

Avatar trilogy (actually 5 books) first 3 then 2 add-ons

Empires trilogy

then start knocking out the harpers books. what are there only 15 or so?

then these:
spellfire, azure bonds, cormyr, elminster

then the other 30 or 40 forty books!

I have about 30 forgotten realms books and love them all.

middle Earth is middle earth and that's it.
Forgotten Realms can't be definded in 3 books there are 50 or 60 books out now and you could write a 100 more on totally different subjects and locales and never hit the same place twice. an actuall large chunk of FR about the size of the US is set aside for just for the development by FASA (an independent writer of gaming material and magazines for D&D) tell me another setting that does that.

as you can see I vote for the Realms.