The Hobbit!

YES! I am so ready to read "The Hobbit" along with you! It's January and the start of the first entire year that I will be doing reading challenges, so at the moment I am reading 4 books at once: "Fortunata & Jacinta" by Benito Perez Galdos (my oldest daughter, who is preparing for her Master's degree in Spanish, gave it to me for Christmas), "The Hobbit" (so much fun re-reading about Bilbo Baggins), "An Echo In The Bone" by Diana Galbadon (which I have been reading for a little while now and hope to finish this month - it's Diana's birthday on January 11th), and "Nefertiti" by Michelle Moran (each member of our book club is reading a different book about a woman in history and I chose Nefertiti). That is probably too much information for this post, but...anyway, I'll try to answer some of the discussion questions...

When did you first hear of The Hobbit? I received the book from my older sister - she is 11 years older than I - as a gift. She was on her own already and sent it to me for my birthday. I was probably around 12. I loved it and couldn't put it down.

What made you decide to join the read-a-long? I read most of "The Lord of the Rings" but never completed all the books. I've been talking about starting over and reading all of them for a few years now, so when I saw this read-a-long, I thought it was an ideal time to plunge in.

Have you read it before? If so tell us about that experience. As I stated above, I read "The Hobbit" and most of "The Lord of the Rings". I loved "The Hobbit", but I guess I got distracted from the other books. I can't even remember how much I finished, but I plan to read the entire series this time.

J.R.R. Tolkien pretty much founded the modern fantasy genre. So let’s take a moment to think about the genre as a whole; have you always loved fantasy? I didn't really consider myself a "fantasy" fan until I realized that I'd been reading fantasy after fantasy. I like books like "The Hobbit" and LOTR, but I also like urban fantasy like the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. I like time travel romance especially Jude Deveraux' and Lynn Kurland's novels. And I have loved reading the Outlander series. I've read "Twilight" and "The Host", so, yes, I guess you could say I am a fantasy fan.

Do you have a certain plan for reading it? A few pages a day, spacing it out over the month? Or are you just going to race through it? Let whimsy decide? As I said, I'm reading 4 books at once right now. I read for 15 minutes in one book, then 15 minutes in another - unless I get to a good part and I can't stop at 15 minutes. It's working for now. I'm almost done with "An Echo In The Bone".

Reading "The Hobbit" just makes me happy. I actually giggled (and believe me, I haven't giggled for years) when Bilbo reached in that troll's pocket. He's so cute.

I hope you are having as much fun reading "The Hobbit" as I am. I can't wait for the next round of questions.

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