Next in line on my shelf of old books is J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. As you can see in the photos, they’ve had some wear and tear. I bought them when I was roughly twelve and I’m not sure if I bought all of them at the same place or not. I know that I didn’t buy all of them at the same time. One I know (although I don’t know which) was bought at Main News on the square in Urbana, Ohio. That little shop is long gone now but it was basically a newspaper store that also sold magazines, greeting cards, convenience store types of snacks…and paperbacks.
I read all four of them when I was in seventh grade and loved them even if I didn’t fully understand everything that was going on. Whenever the topic of the Elves’ history came up, it kind of threw me. At that point in time, though, I loved fantasy stories and these seemed to be the epitome.
This is one set of books that most of my kids have read and they have read the exact same copies I read when I was twelve. These got read right along with Harry Potter. It helped that Peter Jackson’s film versions came out right about the same time the Harry Potter films started coming out – which is hard to believe was almost twenty years ago. When I heard about the LOTR’s movies, I re-read the series and understood significantly more than I did when I was in Junior High.
I’ve only read these twice but I think I’m planning on re-reading them again soon (I consider sometime in 2022 to be soon). My favorite characters have always been Merry and Pippin both when I was twelve and when I was an adult. I didn’t appreciate the loyalty of Sam Gamgee until I was an adult but he became one of my favorite sidekicks.
Oh, and when I bought these they were only $2.50. At some point, I probably need to replace them. I might have grandchildren some day and maybe they’ll want to read them.