false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156043000m/30.jpg 30 26 Hobbits and wizards and Sauron--oh, my! Mild-mannered Oxford scholar John Ronald Reuel Tolkien had little inkling when he published <I>The Hobbit; Or, There and Back Again</I> in 1937 that, once hobbits were unleashed upon the world, there would be no turning back. Hobbits are, of course, small, furry creatures who love nothing better than a leisurely life quite free from adventure. But in that first novel and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the hobbits Bilbo and Frodo and their elfish friends get swept up into a mighty conflict with the dragon Smaug, the dark lord Sauron (who owes much to proud Satan in <I>Paradise Lost</I>), the monstrous Gollum, the Cracks of Doom, and the awful power of the magical Ring. The four books' characters--good and evil--are recognizably human, and the realism is deepened by the magnificent detail of the vast parallel world Tolkien devised, inspired partly by his influential Anglo-Saxon scholarship and his Christian beliefs. (He disapproved of the relative sparseness of detail in the comparable allegorical fantasy his friend C.S. Lewis dreamed up in <I>The Chronicles of Narnia</I>, though he knew Lewis had spun a page-turning yarn.) It has been estimated that one-tenth of all paperbacks sold can trace their ancestry to J.R.R. Tolkien. But even if we had never gotten Robert Jordan's <I>The Path of Daggers</I> and the whole fantasy genre Tolkien inadvertently created by bringing the hobbits so richly to life, Tolkien's epic about the Ring would have left our world enhanced by enchantment. <I>--Tim Appelo</I> 89369 1954 J.R.R. Tolkien Boxed Set (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) total:4281|5:2967|4:926|3:301|2:50|1:38| 4281 19575 5061 486 5 3 false false Fri Sep 19 14:11:01 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 19 14:11:47 -0700 2008
It's long.]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1966 Sun Sep 09 16:12:46 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 17 15:40:01 -0700 2007
Tolkien describes Hobbits: "I ...more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1993 Fri Mar 23 04:55:48 -0700 2007 Fri Mar 23 05:02:05 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1980 Thu Mar 19 20:53:58 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 19 20:56:16 -0700 2009
I get more out of them with each re-reading. Tolkien would be one of those guys who, if I could invite any 3 people to have dinner with, would get a seat at the table. ]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1980 Sat Jan 05 12:16:54 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 05 12:30:40 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Sun Sep 23 13:13:10 -0700 2007 Thu Nov 01 09:49:43 -0700 2007 When I read these books I had all the time in the world, so I read them all in a few weeks. The Hobbit is a separate story where Bilbo goes through different adventures with the dwarves. The Lord of the Rings saga is incredible. These are the books that ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Aug 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 06:05:16 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 06:40:38 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 01 10:17:59 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 01 10:17:59 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1995 Wed Nov 04 22:18:16 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 04 22:22:30 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Dec 19 17:02:04 -0800 2007 Wed Dec 19 17:03:18 -0800 2007 4 0 false false Wed Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 1978 Fri Jun 26 13:09:29 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 26 13:23:09 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Sat Feb 07 22:59:01 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 07 23:02:42 -0800 2009
I eventually worked out that it was best to read some passages out loud to myself (main...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1984 Thu Dec 04 15:19:54 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 04 15:37:55 -0800 2008 4 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 18 09:41:48 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 18 09:48:12 -0700 2009
As a lover of literature (w...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Mon Jan 05 18:03:59 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 05 18:10:26 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 1 false false Mon Jan 28 13:09:13 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 28 16:37:06 -0800 2008 petit-bourgeois bullshit. ]]> 4 0 false true Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 07:22:03 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 07:22:12 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Mon May 18 15:12:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 15:12:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 15 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 25 15:46:47 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 25 18:20:26 -0800 2009 4
Two of my bookgroup...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 01 11:41:06 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 01 11:45:24 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=30