I don’t know when I first read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I think it was after I read The Hobbit. But when did I read The Hobbit? All I can say is I was much, much younger. It was before I moved to California, which means it was sometime before 6th grade. Assuming 5th grade as the latest possible time, call it 1983, when I was 11 years old.
Shortly after the Little Man was born, I tried reading it again, but I didn’t get far. After all, we had a newborn baby and were in the process of buying a house. Of course, I’ve seen and immensely enjoyed the movies that were made from the book, but my desire to read the books again–as an adult–has been growing and every once in a while, it would occur to me to do so. It’s been difficult to fit in, however. First, I have to read books that I review for InterGalactic Medicine Show. Then there was reading for my Vacation in the Golden Age. Now that the latter is on hiatus, I have a little more time to spend on other reading. With that in mind, I’ve decided to give The Lord of the Rings another turn. I am most interested to see how the book differs from the movie, as the latter has all but absorbed my early memories of the former. And I’m also interested to read it as a grown-up (such as I am) as oppose to the 10 or 11-year old I was when I first encountered it.
I imagine I’ll have a few things to say about it along the way, but in the meantime, if anyone is wondering what books I’m reading at the moment, you can bet that one of them is The Lord of the Rings. (The other happens to be Gregory Benford and Larry Niven’s Bowl of Heaven.)
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