October Group Read Discussion: The Fellowship of the Ring (Lord of the Rings #1) by J.R.R. Tolkien

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This is the October Monthly Group Read discussion of The Fellowship of the Ring (Lord of the Rings #1) by J.R.R. Tolkien. This book can be used to fulfill prompt #18 A book containing magical creatures that aren't dragons
National Black Cat Day is October 27, 2025!
https://www.calendarr.com/united-stat...
Dubhease is the “magical manager” who has graciously volunteered to lead this discussion! Thank you ever so much! 👏👏👏👏👏👏

HERE is a listing of potential discussion questions. These are meant to not only help those who volunteer to facilitate these monthly discussions but also to provide ideas for members participating in discussions!

Every person reads at a different pace, so please use spoiler tags if you are sharing any plot-related surprises. This allows others to decide whether this information might reveal surprising information they have not yet read. It can also be helpful to other readers if you post the location within the book noting your progress (chapter and/or page number). That way, if someone else has read that far they can go ahead and open the spoiler, but if not, they'll know to skip it for now and return later...

TO ADD SPOILER TAGS:
Use this for spoilers, just remove the spaces:
< spoiler > write your spoiler here and close with < / spoiler >

Posts here should only be contributions to discussion about this book. 😊

[Dubhease]

Who is planning on re-reading this book and who is reading it for the first time?

[Theresa]

I've actually read it at least 3 times, possibly 4. I'll probably just chime in as the month goes by. Love it!

[Doni]

I started reading this yesterday! I have never read it before. I read The Hobbit when I was a kid and didn't particularly like it so I never read more of the series. I'm watching the movie co-currently. So far, I think the movie does a pretty good job of retaining the flavor of the book, especially because it keeps so much of the dialogue.

[LeahS]

I read it many years ago and then enjoyed the films. Will chip in now and again, if I remember something useful!

[Doni]

I have been marveling about how long this classic has been popular, but I just finished the chapter on the house of tom bombadil and honestly, I'm finding it kind of boring. They keep stopping at people's houses and having meals, but Tolkien doesn't even bother to describe the meals such as they do in the Redwall series. They encounter people, but not befriending them like in Diana Wynne Jones's books with characters not as interesting as Alice in Wonderland. There's more description than dialogue. I'm going to keep reading, but so far, I don't understand what all the fuss is about.

[Brandon]

The pace picks up a bit after leaving Tom's house, although I would say that there is quite a bit of "fuss" in the first two chapters. One of my favorite chapters in Fellowship is The Council of Elrond. The world gets a lot bigger from then on, at least from the perspective of our hobbit characters.

[Dubhease]

I never read Lord of the Rings in high school like a lot of fans. When I started dating my husband, he started reading me the Hobbit as a bedtime story over the phone. It wasn't until we were married that I read Lord of the Rings.

Honestly, I found the first movie exhausting. I found the book had rises and falls of action. The movie was action scene to action scene with no rests or poetry to break it up. Everyone's perspective is going to be different.