When did you first get your hands on Tolkien?

[churrlo]

I started around the time when the movies first came out blaugh I was secluded haha. I had read the Hobbit before but with great difficulty >< I was like... 13 or something I guess.  

[JenJenEvil]

i read the hobbit before lotr, when i was 12 or 13...
i watched the fotr a year before, then i read the simarillion, then unfinished tales, then other random books by tolkien  

[Soloikos]

My dad read the first half chapter of the Hobbit to my two younger brothers and me as a bedtime story, but then he stopped so eventually I started reading it on my own in 2nd grade. It took me a while because I wasn't a very avid reader then and it was a little advanced for me at the time, but I finished it and went straight on to LotR and then the Bible. Then I went back to the Hobbit, LotR a second time, then the Silmarillion. I think it was reading the Silmarillion that really got me into the whole world of Tolkien, but the Hobbit is still one of my top favorites. I also really like Roverandom, even though it's just a little kids' book.

But I'm sure that I'd known about Tolkien for a long time before that and had seen the animated LotR, although I didn't know they were the same story as the books. I'm certain I knew of Tolkien, though, because I've known the names 'Farmer Giles of Ham' and 'the Smith of Wooten Major' for as long and I can remember without ever having read them or learned anything more than Tolkien wrote them.  

[Galad Aglaron]

Menegil

Are you ready to be shocked?

I have only heard of Lord of the Rings when the movies came out.

I only began reading the books shortly before the Two Towers movie came out.

I was 13. I was easily influenced by eye-candy!

NO LONGER =_,=

eek  

[LOTRfan]

Wow...hello I am new but anyways I feel like a really bad Tolkien fan because I didn't even watch the movies until May of this year and then I decided that I wanted to read the books because UI thought thatt he movie was amazing so in my small brain I figured that the book would be even better....I was right on that part but I now own the entire set in one hard cover volume because the library got tired of lending out to me....no joke. I am currently on the fifth time reading it I think and I adored The Hobbit, it was amazing. I haven't been able to get through The Simillarion yte but I refuse to read any other Tolkien book suntil I read it!!! I have read a really good biography on him though, it was called Myth Maker, amazing read......  

[[Cresenne]]

I read The Hobbit when I was 7 or 8 (am 15 now) and shortly after that I started FotR. When I got to the Council of Elrond, it was really boring, so I stopped. A little less than a year later, I probably heard about that the movies were coming out soon (it was the year FotR was released) and read FotR, thought I never saw it in theaters. From there I went on though the rest of the series and then onto The Silmarillion and HoMe.  

[Isildo]

I don't remember how old I was when I read Lord of the Rings the first time through, but I know I read it before the films came out, and I remember reading The Silmarillion in 7th grade, and after reading LotR. So that would mean I read the Silmarillion in... 2002 or 2003. FotR came out in 2001, so I must have read Lord of the Rings in fifth or sixth grade. I know I was completely done with them before the movie previews started running, because I went back and reread them when I saw the first one.  

[Elenyae]

The Hobbit was read at the tender age of 8. But I had to constantly pretend that I hated it because it was a set book for a group of us in my class and they ALL hated it (I think because they just hated reading in general), so I had to keep my love of Gollum and Smaug to myself. crying Then I started reading Fellowship and God knows how long I spent reading that. xp  

[Rudhe]

Your class read the Hobbit at age 8 O.O. My class was v. slow...  

[Elenyae]

Rudhheniel

Your class read the Hobbit at age 8 O.O. My class was v. slow...

No. The book was only for about 4-5 of us. The "advanced learners". xp  

[Rudhe]

the teachers idea of "advanced text" were storybooks 2-3 years up...and those were only for silent reading...  

[Elenyae]

Oh?? I read our entire Junior School library by the time I was in Year 6. The librarians didn't like me because I wanted nice thick books.

I still remember my favorite part of LotR ever when I first read it - Gandalf's letter to Frodo that Barliman Butterman forgets to post. (is his name Butterman??)

I hope Barliman sends this promptly. A worthy man but with a memory like a lumber pile, thing wanted, always buried. If he does not send this immediately, I shall roast him.

(or something along those lines, I can't remember them at this precise moment and I don't have the book handy xp )  

[Rudhe]

twisted  

[Puddum]

My first time was right around when the first movie came out. My mom bought me the trilogy for the holidays and I had started to read the prologue, but that night I had nightmares and held off reading the rest. I saw the movie with my class the next month and that sucked me in. I read the rest of the books and I've been a fan ever since. :3  

[Rudhe]

Did you get to study LOTR in school? My teacher thought it was too long...especially because we were wee freshman when the first movie came out =P.