The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien

[Stephanie]

June-August 2010

The Fellowship of the Ring

Post comments here!

[LynnB]

I love these books. I read them in my early 20's and then when my oldest child was about 9 or 10 I started out reading them aloud to my kids -- who loved them, too. It took a while to read them all to them!

[Stephanie]

Now I want to go back again and see how mine is set up. For the summer, you can certainly read as much as you would like, but you can stop in your edition after The Fellowship of the Ring. We'll do the rest later.

[Stephanie]

My table of contents looks like this:

The Fellowship of the Ring
Book One
(12 chapters listed)

Book Two
(10 chapters listed)

The Two Towers
Book Three
(11 chapters listed)

Book Four
(10 chapters listed)

The Return of the King
Book Five
(10 chapters listed)

Book Six
(9 chapters listed)

Appendices

[Garlan ✌]

I see these books at Goodwill on occasion, but have never picked one up. I'll see if I can find a copy this weekend. I loved the movies, and MANY YEARS ago, I did read The Hobbit, which I liked at the time...

[Willis]

Have read this trilogy at least twice and loved it. Much better than the films, but do enjoy those too for the most part. I understand there's a lot of symbolism that the 60's-era/generation found quite meaningful; a bit before my time - but if anyone could give some insight, would like to hear it.

[Elena]

I started listening to The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again. This book is the prequel to the Lord Of The Rings. It is a YA, short book. The audio is fascinating. It is a dramatization (it was a radio show) with all kind of voices, sounds, music. It is only 4 hours long. I think it is a good option for people whose fantasy is not their favorite genre.

I will start listening to The Fellowship of the Ring next.

[Stephanie]

I share many of the same sentiments as NicholeMichele. I finished The Fellowship of the Ring last night and really enjoyed the introduction to the trilogy. There are so many great themes in this book - good versus evil, loyalty and friendship, etc.

I saw all three films before starting the books, and in this case I don't think that is a detriment. As I read, I was easily able to visualize the scenes and the characters which might have been more difficult to follow without the film for reference.

The book does feel like a non-fiction epic adventure and Tolkien writes like it is real - from the 300 page appendix explaining languages, histories, family trees, etc. to the created languages used in this book. (I appreciate the creativity, but I am NOT a fan of made-up languages in books.)

I found myself thinking that the first book would be shorter without all of the Hobbits singing about everything, but I guess that is just a Hobbit being a Hobbit. :)

Can't wait for book two...I will probably start that one in the next month or so.

[Elena]

I didn't get to far with the audio book. I had problem understanding the accent of the different voices. I got the paperback but have not picked it up yet.