How did you first encounter Tolkien's works?

[bmilder]

When I was little, I saw the animated "Hobbit" in a video store. It looked interesting, but my mom wouldn't rent it because she said it would spoil the book for me when I read it. Not too long after that, when I was about 7, my aunt gave the book to me as a birthday present. When I got to the first sentence, I demanded to know what a hobbit was. My mom just told me to continue reading. Obviously, Tolkien explained what a hobbit was. I loved the book, and wanted to read LotR as soon as possible but my mom said I was too young to fully appreciate it (I probably was). A year later, at about 8, I started Fellowship. I couldn't put the book down! I would stay up all night reading just to find out what happened. After I was done, I quickly decided it was my favorite book. I tried to get everyone I knew interested in it. I read the first two LotR books out loud to my little brother. (By the time we got to RotK, it had been a year and I was tired of it so he never got to hear that one ;)) I convinced all my friends to read it. Few of them got past The Two Towers. One didn't even make it past the first chapter of "Hobbit"! Of course, I was probably starting them too early but I didn't realize it at the time ;). Ok, now that you've listened to my boring story... When did you first encounter Tolkien?

[Hernalt]

I had not heard of Tolkien until after high school. Up to that point, I had no interest in the medeival period in general, but at thirteen I had begun making a prodigious effort to start work on a science fiction series which would encompass a minimum of seven trilogies and span likely a.. who knows.. a billion years. (That particular legacy is still waiting for a suitable platform, which I anticipate, all going well, next year.) So I was 18 and graduated when I was introduced to Tolkien by a 45-ish year old chick/friend who had been through the 60's resurgence era. She could recite the first parts of the Hobbit ever since she had memorized them in college. The first words I heard of Tolkien's were, ish, "In a hole in a hill live a Hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty hole but a comfortable hole etc etc.." My curiosity was piqued. I had been blown away by Greg Bear's cyclopean EON; I was game now to try going to other way on the continuum of time - from eternity to 'never-ty.' So I tried it. Liked it. Got my friend into it. He went through the Silmarillion before me and got into the Elves while I was still on Numenor. We'd walk under the stars philosphizing and dining on ashes like Dead Poets. By this time I had read the main stuff once. Once I was driving, I'd take day-trips to scenic natural and geologic areas that looked as keenly of Middle-Earth as I could find. Precipice mountains and cliffs overlooking broad rivers far below; secluded little dells and dales; broad open glades in the middle of natural forests; old-stands of Norway Spruce that had been planted in rows innumerable but that had been left to grow; gorges with high waterfalls; tunnels of pine eaves; snow-covered fields. I learned the value of Twilight and of the Elvish seasons known as Stirring and Fading. I began to worship nature and earth itself, and in such decision there reached completeness. There is no religion. There is life. For a short time I was playing Middle-earth RISK with my younger brother and his friend, and we made armies of Orcs, Gondor, Arnor, Lorien, Imladris, and Iron Hills. And for each game, we were each allowed one miracle per team. It had to be a good one. Soon I was tempted to begin jotting down my own envisionings, and that made it easy to desire writing a medeival story in addition to the space story I had on the back burner. After a few years of subconscious munching, they both came together. If they get written; you'll see them. But life is already huge without even writing. At the very least, I desire to leave my mark with a webpage of educational proportion, so Tolkien readers can see at a glance the sources he pulled from. The movies will be here soon.

[Jedi Eowyn]

Back in fourth grade my parents were reading Lord of the Rings. The covers scared me. They were old ace paperbacks with Gandalf menacing on the first, a nazgul on a flying horse menacing on the second book, and Sauron menacing on the third. The books stayed on top of my father's "read" pile for a long time. No books stayed there for long, so it got my attention. (He was rereading.) I got my courage together, "borrowed" Fellowship and read it, despite the cover. Dad did reclaim the books when I was done, another unusual thing for him to do. When I think about it the third book's cover is still chilling. I think I used to open RotK and not look at the picture in order to avoid scaring myself. The cover was a giant black wraith encicling it's own black tower/mountain with defensive soldiers crouching below. *shiver*

[Darth Tater]

I first encountered them in a dark ally... But seriously, my friend was reading Hobbit, we always liked what each other read so I read it. Pretty soon we were presenting almost identical book reports every month (we read at basically the same pace). Now we discuss the books (and upcoming movies) on a regular basis. He has no artistic talent and I'm an artist, so I put both our ideas on paper. I'm gonna scan in my LOTR art pretty soon and then I can post it here for all to see.

[Hernalt]

Perhaps you could eventually submit it to the largest gallery at Rolozo. (http://soar.berkeley.edu/rolozo/)

[gollum65]

a little guy with furry feet was selling books on a corner... i bought one. It was one of the best books i ever read, untill i found the lord of therings, it is the best book that i have ever read.

[The One Ring]

I first read the Hobbit at age seven. I liked it very much, and when I learned about the Lord of the Rings a year later, I immediately got a copy and read it through in about two weeks. When I was done, I decided it was the best book I had ever read, and read the whole thing through again a month later.

[Elrond]

I first remember being read 'the hobbit' at the age of about 3. I read LOTR for the first time when I was 8 (i had tried to read it before then, but mum's old copy of it was so past it that pieces kept falling out, and I had to get a new copy). I read 'the silmarillion' when I was 10, because by then I was seriously into tolkien, and still am:) I got the box set with the hobbit in 2, the one only avaliable in England. the covers have tolkien's own sketches on them. and I have the limited edition one 2, but i've been forbidden to touch that one, in case I ruin it.

[anduin]

I wasn't what you would call a reader, until college (college will do that for you). A friend had asked me if I had read LOTR. Of course I hadn't, but he encouraged me to pick it up. Since then I have read the Trilogy once a year. I have also read it aloud to my boyfriend. My whole life had changed after I had read those books. Now it seems I can get enough books to read.

[Elrond]

Only once a year? That's less than me...;)

[Darth Tater]

How often do you read it Elrond?

[Elrond]

4 times, this year... I'm giving it a rest now, though. I'm re- reading some of the others like The silmarillion, and Unfinished tales.

[Ryan6233]

I..i feel really dumb...i didn't actually read tlotr untill i was like 12 :P Bieng read the hobbit at age 3 is just plain...wierd

[Elrond]

Not realy... It wasn't being read to me, I was just listening. Mum was reading it for my cousin, who was 7 at the time.

[Darth Tater]

Wow! Just, wow!

[Elanor]

My younger brother got passionately excited over Tolkien books. He and my older sister in sixth grade read the Hobbit when I was in 5th grade, and told me repeatedly that I should read it, but I thought it was dumb and wouldn't. Besides, I imagined a hobbit as some icky limping black monster, a foot tall after they told me it was a little creature. So I wouldn't even consider reading the book until I saw my sister's book report, a close-up 3-d map of mirkwood, with the Lonely Mountain and label, "giant spiders". One boring day when I had nothing else to do, my brother kept bothering me and making me feel like a meanie, so I picked up the Hobbit and read it in two days. I stole FotR from under his pillow and read it in a week. The rest is history. Most of my family has fun reading these books, but it's frustrating that none of them likes the books as much as me.

[Smaug the Worm]

In 3rd grade, I looked around the school library for a big, thick book to read, and found The Hobbit, and read it.

[Gimli the Dwarf]

My older brother, sister, and another sister had read the Hobbit and LotR and really liked them, so when I was in 3rd grade I read all of them in about a month.They are now my favorite books. Since then I have never read them straight through again, but skip around, and often carry one of the books around in my pocket to read whenever I have time.

[emilsson]

When I was a kid one of my uncles always talked about how I should read LOTR because they were so good. So at the age of twelve I picked it up and I loved it.Now I consider it the best book I have ever read. But LOTR wasn´t enough for me. So a few years later, when I found out about The Hobbit and The Silmarillion I wanted to read those as well. Anyway, I bought them and I really enjoyed them.

[Fat middle]

Hi, bmilder. Finally i´m here. I´ve adapted my name to made it more suitable. This is my first post, so hello all!! As someone said above, Tolkien found me. When i was 10 an elder cousin told me he was reading TLotR. He did me a briefing of what he had read. I cannot remember much, but i know i liked the story and specially the names: Aragorn, Gandalf. But at that age i wasn´t a reader. In fact i only remember to have read a kids version of Saint Joan of Arc and other of Dumas´ The Three Mosqueters (is that the english word?), so i didn´t read the book and fogot it. Four years after, during a three hours car travel a friend (a great friend) told me the story of the Silmarillion. He had read many times all Tolkien books, so he told the story with much detail. He told it so well that i didn´t care to be spoiled. At the end of the travel i firmly decided to read that book. Yes, i first read Silmarillion. I´m the only person i know who has read the books in their chronological order. I´ve heard many times people saying that silmarillion is a queer, difficult book, but i cannot agree. As i said, i wasn´t a good reader (by that time i believe i´d only added two F. Forsyth books to my short list), but the story caught me, and then i began to delight the poetry of the text, the names... i fall in love with Luthien and that day my destiny was made. That year i read The Hobbit and TLotR. When i was finishing it i was wondering how will be Tolkien able to find a worthy crown to that huge work. I began to think he won´t be able, but then i reached the Fields of Pelennor and i fell competely overwhelmed. I thought it was insuperable, but i cannot imagine the scene at the Doom´s Mountain... Now, at 28 i´m a great reader, i like good literature and i´m proud to say that Tolkiens books still are of the best books i ever read. I keep re-reading the books or consulting chapters frequently. Now i´m reading the books in English (i´d used always translated versions) and i´m re-descovering them. Well, that´s my history. Nice to be with you.

[Eruve]

I definitely did not come by them in a normal way! When I was 14, the Bakshi LOTR movie came out. I had heard of LOTR (I had older brothers that had read it, but for some reason I never did) and had tried to read TH, but couldn't get into is, something about the childish tone. But when the movie came out, there was something written up about it in this magazine we got in English class. There was a picture of Gandalf on the cover, and for some reason this made me want to see the movie. So I did. Then I read the trilogy (and realized how bad the movie had been at that point). BUT I loved LOTR!! I even went back and read the Hobbit after that and liked it too. Then I read Sil. It took a couple tries to get into that, too, but I finally managed it and that was the best. When I was 16, Unfinished Tales came out and my dad got it for me for Christmas! Heaven... It all began over 20 years ago. I try to read LOTR and Sil every year, but I don't always succeed.

[gdl96]

In 4th grade, I think, I became pretty friendly with Ben. We had known each other before, but 4th grade was the fost time we were in the sme class. He told me bout Tolkien and stuff and I decided I wanted to read them. I think it was for my birthday in 4th or 5th grade that he got me the Hobbit and LotR boxed set. I started off eagerly reading the Hobbit. I actaully liked it, but slowly and slowly, I read less and less. Eventually I stopped about a third through the book. My favorite part was the part with all the riddles and ****.

[bmilder]

Looks like your memory is going :P Actually, we weren't in the same class until fifth grade. (well, I guess you're right if you include math in fourth, but that doesn't count ;))

[gdl96]

Well since we sat next to each other the whole year in math, I count it that it was the same class.

[bmilder]

Oh yeahhh... ok :P

[ArwenUndomiel02]

When I was in about first grade, I had a friend, older who was always talking about this play she was in. It was The Hobbit. Last year(7th grade), I was looking for something to read in my English class. I saw a copy of The Hobbit and remembered that was the play Cara had been in. So I read it, and my dear friend, Galadriel24(who never ever posts here) caught me with it. She has the books so I bummed LOTR from her until I finished it. It didn't take long, partly because I read fast and partly because she kept nagging me to get her own books. Now I have my own copy!

[Smaug the Magnificent]

Ahhhhhhh memories! First post here, so hello all. Pleased to make your acquaintance. My mother bought The Hobbit for me when I was 12 or so, I think to encourage my reading. I liked it although I realised it was for a younger age group. I thought the Lord of the Rings was going to be similar and at first it was although I was disappointed at Bilbo's early exit. Let's just say that by the time I got to the Barrow Downs, I never wanted to leave Middle Earth again. I read it and re-read it again and again. My mother became worried, I was reading nothing else, neglecting my studies (or at least those which weren't germane to Tolkien). I read the Silmarillion and was disappointed, far too short I thought. I had expected it to be of about the same size and depth of LoTR, after all this is what had been broadly hinted at in the works on Tolkien at the time. But of course I grew to love that too. Unfinished Tales was even more (initially) disappointing, by it's very nature it was bound to be unsatisfying. I came back to it later and found that it was a real treasure trove of tiny nuggets of information. I put down Tolkien for many years then, (I had discovered girls, and none of them seemed to be particularly impressed with my (carefully cultivated) otherworldly air). I only picked up LoTR again about three years ago, I felt as though there was something missing in my life, something I had a long time ago but had lost, and reading LoTR again was designed to remind me of what that was. Now I know. I was missing enchantment. A life without Faery is no life at all. I have become a born again Tolkien obsessive.

[Darth Tater]

Welcome to Entmoot! I'm the mean admin ;) That last line is a treasure!

[anduin]

Nice to meet you and welcome :) I had a similair experience, particularly the part about getting into girls...well, guys actually ;) But it was over the Beatles and not LOTR. LOTR occurred during my second round of discovery: college. I wish, however, that my mom handed me The Hobbit when I was 12.....humpf....I probably wouldn't have bothered, since I didn't like to read. It wasn't until I read LOTR, that I discovered reading for pleasure....

[Glaurung]

My brother read lotr to me when I was about 6 or 7(he is six years older). From the "Tower of Cirith Ungol" I had to read it to HIM cause he got ill. (I read a lot at that age, a lot more than now; I had no computer). Including this first time I read it 11 times now, the last time is over two years ago, though. Ten times in German, last time in English.
I read the Hobbit after lotr, and the Silmarillion and all the other books a couple of years later, I was about 15, I guess.
I read The Hobbit to my younger brother when he was 6 (nine years younger than me). He fairly liked it. Then I tried to read lotr to him, and he didn´t like it. Until then I thought he was an intelligent child! :)

I have found two persons in my lifetime I could talk about Tolkien on same basis of knowledge and devotion(EXcluding Internetboards, of course). The first one was a guy at school, the other one I met at the army. We recitated qoutes out of the books and the other one had to say where the quotes belong to. That was the only fun for me in the army!

[anduin]

Hi, Glaurung....where in Germany do you live?

[Gandalv the white]

i read Lotr first, when i was in 4 or 5Th grade.
it was my mom and dad who got me into reading.
and they have read Lotr and thought incredebly good.
so iread it.
now i have read far more of Tolkien books than they.

[andustar]

um... i can't remember :)
no just kidding, i only don't know when i first read the hobbit

i read fotr just over one year ago, when i was 11 or 12 not sure. i was then stuck for the next two books, my library didn't have them. can you imagine whats it like to have to reread gandalf dying and all that many many times before he comes back?????? misery misery as gollum would say

but at least it made me very familiar with everyone and everything by the time i managed to get hold of the rest of it. i finished the last two books in two days i could not put them down! then i found the silmarillion and UT and i'm still rereading the whole lot. i would be surprised if there has been a single day since i read lotr in which i haven't thought of it at least once.
thats how obsessed i am! :D and the worst of it is theres hardly anyone my age who is... :(
pity. if there is anyone my around 13 please e mail me, shani@parity-bit.com and as you can tell from the name i come from israel! whoops ive gone a little off the subject....
andustar

[Maglor]

Well, I'm 16 and have read most of Tolkiens books in the last 3 years.
A friend of mine had read LotR and I saw the first part of the film with him when I was 11.
Immediately I wanted to read the books, but my aunt told me to start with The Hobbit so she gave it to me for christmas. After reading the last chapters of TH a year She gave me LotR for christmas. Five days later I was finished, it was just breathtaking. I discussed the books with my friend who then had read Silm and UT. He told me parts of the story, but it took me more than a year before I borrowed them at a library. I thought the first chapters of Silm was boring, I had to keep all the names apart. But later I started to enjoy it more and more. UT was not that difficult and I changed from reading Tolkien to studying him. I have now read 7 of the books in the HoME series,(I haven't read the books on LotR and Morghoths Ring)
and I read bits of books almost every day.
I read a lot of history books too and compare real hisory with Tolkiens history. He's right up there with the Illiad

Maglor

[kcbob]

They say the first thing to go when you get old is your memory and the second is... I forget.

I tried to read the hobbit when I was a senior in college (1971). I got about a third of the way through it and quit. I don't know if I felt it was too childish or what. (I'm sure it wasn't because I was studying too hard.) At any rate, I then picked up FOTR about six months later during the summer before my last semester. (4 1/2 years to graduate.) I flew through FOTR, TT, and ROTK in about a week. And numerous times since.

The recently release movie trailer says it best. It IS the best book of the 20th century.

[captain Tarpols]

hmm let's see *finally walks into one of these threads*
well, when i was real young. (alot younger than now. maybe when i was 8 or 7 posibly 6) my mom read me the hobbit. i really liked it! So, Bmilder (my brother ;) ) agreed to read me the rest of the books. He read me the first one (fellow ship of the ring i think) Then he read me the Two Towers. Then he read me the FIRST hcapter of the third (return of hte king or somthing)Then, an AWFULL (;) ) thing happend! Ben found the internet..............we always had it but it was like ben "discovered it" for himself. I think that was when he played Gem Stone 3. and he created hiss web page...he would never finish the 3rd book. always to busy :( to this day i still have not read or had it read to me. :(

[anduin]

Tarps...you really shouldn't wait any longer...something tells me that Ben will never read you the rest. :P Still it is sweet that he read as far as he did....now it is up to you to finish it. You must read what happens!! :)

[Eruve]

OMG, how can you stand the suspense???? I couldn't wait to read through Book V before I found out what happened to Frodo in the tower. I had to go right ahead and read the beginning of Book VI before I could read the rest in the proper order. I don't know how you could possibly wait three years to find out! (Although I suppose Ben's told you by now.)

[anduin]

Wonderful sig Eruve! :)

CT, I have been thinking....maybe you should put down those Harry Potter books, and pick up LOTR instead. :p

[captain Tarpols]

lol. maybe ;)

[bmilder]

Well, even after having read almost every night to you, it still took about a year to get to RotK. I remember that I took RotK along with us on our trip to Boston, which was in summer 1996 or '97, I think, but never started it. As you said, I became more involved with the internet and other stuff and it had taken so long so we just stopped :p .

Just read it yourself and start from the beginning. I was younger than you when I read The Hobbit, LotR, and the Silmarillion ;) .

[galadriel2]

My da read them to me and my siblings as a bedtime story(they terrified my sister. she always went to another room when dad read)When i was seven or eight i read the Hobbit but didn't get around to reading FOTR until about half a year later. once i finished LOTR i was hooked. i've been reading them ever since.

[anduin]

Welcome to Entmoot, Galadriel2!!

[RKittle]

In 1979, my first year of High School, the librarian showed me a slide show of animated 'The Hobbit'. After that, I found the book and loved it. Only a few weeks later I was reading "Well, I'm back." And I was hooked.

[anduin]

Hullo RKittle....welcome to Entmoot! :)

[easygreen]

I was 13 when I read LOTR for the first time. A copy of The Fellowship of the Ring caught my eye at a school book fair. Neat cover - Gandalf and company before the gates of Moria. My mom almost fainted when she came home from work that evening and found me cloistered in my room reading. She got me the rest of the books in a nice boxed set the next day, and I gobbled them up in a marathon reading session that left me physically exhausted but spiritually exalted. (Sounds corny, doesn't it? But every Tolkien devotee knows this feeling).

It was probably because of that initial encounter with Tolkien that I became kind of a book worm, later majored in English Literature and spent six years in grad school. If it weren't for Tolkien, I'd probabaly have received a degree in computer sciences and made a zillion bucks already in the technologies industry.

Instead, I'm the poor miserable wretch that you see today: no BMW, no stock options. Just the tale of Beren and Luthien to keep me warm on chill California nights.

[IronMongery]

some of my relatives sent it to me because they thought i was a uncultured swine.

[Fat middle]

this thread has become a beatuful compendium of stories, but certainly yours, IronMongery is one of the funniest :D Welcome to Entmoot!


hey! easygreen yours too ;)

[IronMongery]

why thank you! it did make excellent toilet paper ;)

[anduin]

Finally someone with a twisted sense of humor. :evil:

easygreen.......that was beautiful. *sniff* :)

[Niffiwan]

I was about 4 or 5 when I first read The Hobbit.


No, it's true, really....

Well, a shrtened, comic-book version of it anyway. I didn't really know what I'd read, but I liked the hard-cover comic book, and brought it with me to Canada. The comic book was, and I still think is, pretty good BTW, despite the fact that it was shortened.
Later, I saw Brewhaha reading "LotR" (unlucky for him, he didn't even read The Hobbit.. he abandoned it at the end of "Fellowship" and is planning to read it after he reads the Hobbit); amazingly, when he was in grade 5. I heard him talking about it, got interested, but decided to read "The Hobbit" before I read it.
Only when I got the book out the library and read part of it did I realise that it was the same story as that comic book that I had read so long ago (I still read it sometimes; ah, memories). Then I decided to buy the three LotR books (nice canadian editions with beautiful covers; go on www.indigo.ca and search for the 3 books to see the editions; or www.chapters.ca). I bought an American "2 Towers" edition because I was visiting America at the time and couldn't wait until I returned back to Canada.
However, I decided that the edition was very ugly compared to the Canadian one, so I returned it.
Then, I was going to buy the Hobbit to complete my collection, but the previus editions started to dissapear as the company made new editions of Tolkien's books.
Finally I found a previous edition in a poorly-placed bookstore. Then I found out why nobody had bought it; somebody had scribbled in blue pen on the back of the book.
The cashier gave me a 10% discount for that, telling me that I couldn't wipe it out.
I did, though; it took some time, but I just smudged it out untill you couldn't tell that it was ever on that book.
So I got a pointless discount :) heh, lucky for me.
Later, I couldn't find an old edition of "unfinised tales", but decided that it was kind of a "different class" of Tolkien's books anyway, and just bought the new version (which looks, feels and is designed much better than the old one, BTW, although the cover picture is almost the same).

[etherealunicorn]

When I was eight or nine, while visiting relatives, my cousin was cleaning out old books and told me to look through the boxes. I picked out what I was interested in and my cousin looked at what I had left, one of which was the Hobbit. My cousin immediately picked it up and also gave it to me and told me to read it because he knew I would like it.
When I returned home, I didn't think anything more about The Hobbit for a couple of months, then I started reading it one rainy day. Well, that hooked me and I devoured the book in two or three days. Two weeks later I had to read the others. Admittedly, it took a bit longer to read LotR and the Silmarillion, but I finished them and have never left them for long since. I try to reread LotR about once a year, somewhat less for the other two.

[arynetrek]

i read the hobbit about 5 times in elementary/middle school, & every one of those times an idiot english teacher ruined it (i hate it when they do that!). i liked the book itself, but discussing things like "would you want to be a hobbit?" with a class of unimaginitive, uninterested 4th-graders just isn't fun. in 7th grade, i read FotR for the first time - my mom had this disintegratign paperback, half its pages falling out, halfway through "a knife in the dark" the publisher royally screwed up & skipped over about 30 pages - the Company (or the beginnings of it) went from plodding through Midgewater straight to Strider healing Frodo from teh Wraith-knife. for about a year, all i knew about the missing chapter was that Frodo got stabbed & the wound/knife-point almost killed him. i had to wait two years until i finished the series - my library & the others nearby DIDN"T HAVE THEM! - durign my freshman year of high school i got the trilogy in one book (tolkein's 100th birthday edition - gorgeous version, btw) as a gift. (i'm way too possessive of that book... my little sister asked me the other day if she should read LotR, & of course i told her yes; she asked if she could borrow my copy, & i told her she could only if she wore gloves while handling it, kept it in a safe when she wasn't reading, turned the pages with sterilized tweezers).

that summer my family & i went on this road trip; i remember finishing FotR just as we drove to my relatives' house in chicago - for the remainder of our visit i sat locked in a room doing nothing but reading. after a few days, all the relatives started to drive eath other crazy, & my immediate family left to go to mammoth cave. for those of y'all who've never been there, it's a huge-ass cave with guided tours through parts of it, with gorgeous forests above it. all i could think of was "Moria! Lorien!" i kept reading, & as we left mammoth cave (we stayed nearby for 2 nights) the Ents had just torn up Isengard. we drove to atlanta next (don't ask me why we drove from dallas to chicago to kentucky to atlanta to dallas - all that matters is it gave me reading time!) to visit more relatives, who i don't think i even saw because by now i was at teh point where i couldn't look away from the book long enough to blink. i finished the series about 3 days later, & my first reaction to the end was about a day in shock over how incredible the whole series was, another day of "too bad you can't read a book for teh first time again!" & a week of "that was too short - it can't be over yet!" i've never been so emotionally attached to a book - i felt like i was one of the characters. gandalf dying, gandalf returning, the battle of Pellenor (sp?) Felds, & particularly the Frodo/Shelob scene - i was absolutely convinced that Frodo was dead, & to put down the book & cried for an hour or two before i could go on.

the first time i read LotR was between freshman & soph year fo high school - i read it again earlier this year & did a research paper, but this was during first semester of senior year & i had college **** to do, so it wasn't teh best writing i've done. now that i've graduated & passed & got accepted into college, & have huge amounts of free time again, i'm starting on Silmarillion.

unrelated side notes -
- on my class ring, i tried to get the engravers to inscribe the "one ring" verse, but they wouldn't. and i didn't even ask them to do it in the Black Tongue...
- i've used the phrase "my preciousss" so many times, it's become a joke among my friends & i - they call me "gollum." but none of them have read LotR, only Hobbit, so when i ask them to use the name "smeagol" they give me blank looks.
- one great thing about havign ignorant people run a school is that you can call the administrators "a pack of Uruk-Hai" to their faces & they don't know what you're talkign about! :)

thanks for reading all this ramblling - i know it's long, but who cares?

aryne *

[quam]

I started reading Hobbit 5-6 years ago,when I was only 7,
because I was so happy that I could finally read words,that
my mom gave it to me. A year later I started reading LOTR,
and ever since, I read it once,twice a year,when I have forgotten a bit of the details,so it becomes interesting again.

[Fat middle]

just sending this up. i love this thread and i guess some of the new Saplings and Hobbits may want to share his story with us :)

[dunedain lady]

I first read the hobbit when I was pretty small, but stopped at the chapter about Mirkwood because the spiders scared me (they still do). I read it again when I was about 10, then 2 years ago, when I was 13, my family read LOTR out loud. We had listened to Fellowship on tape on a long car trip (I still envision Rivendell as somehow resembling Chincoteage Island), and were hooked. We then read the next two books out loud, each person taking a chapter. My parents were rather bemused by the fact that I could put a tune to all of the songs, even having never heard them before. In school, the computers have TELNET, so a friend got me hooked on T2T MUD.

[Grand Admiral Reese]

Well, I was never much interested in Tolkien until this year(I'm 17), and bought LotR and The Hobbit at a Troll Books warehouse in June. They just sat on my bookshelf for a while, until I'd read a few more books, and then I read them, starting with The Hobbit, and then going through LotR over the next week or so.

I feel a little dumb with all these people reading LotR and The Hobbit in like 3rd/4th grade and me not reading it until I was 17 and going into my Junior year in High Schoo. It's probably the result of me being one of the few people in my school system who reads much at all(I'll put it this way: last year, there were 20 people in my English class, I was the ONLY one who finshed reading A Tale of Two Cities).

[noldo]

I saw that annoying Bakshi's cartoon. :|