When did you first get your hands on Tolkien?

[Puddum]

Unfortunately no. We read a lot of mythology and Shakespeare, but no Lord of the Rings. But since I went to a "smart" school, half the student body or more had already read it. lol  

[Rudhe]

How cool! You'd be able to discuss it with a lot of people =P. I went to a public school, which meet if you read it you were a NERD GEEK.  

[Puddum]

Most of my close friends were actually card game nerds, though. Few people I knew intimately were very into LotR. My best (offline) friend is into it, though, so that's great, because I finally have someone other than my mom to watch the movies with. xd  

[Rudhe]

Same with me. My best friend was the one who dragged me to see the first movie. We were so young and innocent then...  

[Tears of the Siren]

Only a few of my friends have read them. I've been trying to convince others to read them, but in four years, no luck. I WILL NOT GIVE UP! Maybe I can finally get at least one of them to break down and read it.  

[Rudhe]

Otherwise find new friends that find reading more appealing.

I know I have friends whom I'd never DREAM of asking them to read the tril.  

[Dracolish]

My experience with lotr was... curious at the best. i have been an avid reader since i was little, when i was 8 i had already read Verne's "Sons of Captain grant" in the complete version, plus Hamlet, and some more serious literature... by 12 i had read loads and more loads of books, my favorie autors been Verne, Ende & Shakespeare, but i had never even heard of Tolkien or Lewis... one day reading the local newspaper, i found a list of best sellers, including lotr, and one image of a genie with loads of rings... curious, i left for the local library, and started reading The Fellowship... one week later i was hooked with Two Towers, and two weeks since then i was buying the trilogy, and being absorbed by The Return of the King... spoke with my lit. teacher, and she lent me Silmarillion, which has been my bible since then... by the time i finished The Hobbit, i went to see a movie, and in the trailers... DUN DUN DUUUUNNN!!!! LOTR TRAILER!!!! by the time the movies were out, i had read the books several times, and could recall almost every fact about lotr trilogy.

Know what i hated? a year before the movies, everyone was treating me as The Elite Nerd... just 'cause i was reading every chance i got... a year after the movies, not also everyone was doing it, but they believed to be experts in Tolkien because of the movies... daaaammmmnnn

Finally i found literate friends like 2 or 3 years ago...  

[Rudhe]

Wow, I've love reading from young, although I'd wishe people had pointed me to some real literature then the stuff I normally read. Still its given me a strange appreciation for picture books to this day =P. The only consolation is that I doubt at 8 - 12 I would have been interested in long novels. Even Narnia was a whole new read when I read it recently vs my first read back in Primary school days.  

[Puddum]

Lord of the Rings was the biggest book I'd ever read when I first read it and I was thirteen. So kudos to everyone who got to it before then. biggrin  

[Rudhe]

I think I firstead the book when I was about 13 as well....it was just after the FOTR at any rate.

((Go read announcements!))  

[Nimrodel of Lorinand]

I've always loved to read. Even before I could actually read, I would sit with a copy of "Goodnight Moon" and recite it from memory, pretending to be reading.

I first attempted to read FoTR in first grade. I remember this clearly, because the label on the book said, "Seventh grade level". I recall gtting through the first few pages, but not really understanding what was going on.

When I was in fifth grade, I finally read the Hobbit, and I really, really liked it. I would have gone on to LoTR then, but my school didn't have it in the library. Although they did have all of the Harry Potter books, which you had to practically pass a criminal background check to check out.

When I was in 7th grade my mom brought home a copy of FoTR on VHS. I seriously think I'm the only person in the world who paused the movie 20 minutes in, ran to the Library, and read the Book, before watching the rest of the movie. Heh, my brother was mad 'cause he wanted to watch it, but I wouldn't let him, until I finished the book [Five days].

After I read LoTR, I went on a Tolkien binge. I read the Book of Lost Tales I and II, Morgoth's Ring, War of the Jewels, the four-part History of LoTR (can't remember their names... Heheh, Trotter...), I skimmed the Lays of Beleriand, because the book was falling apart, I own the Shaping of Middle-Earth, and... I think I've read more, but I can't remember.  

[The_Great_White_Snark]

My dad read The Hobbit to me while I was in the womb. And then again once I was a toddler and able to understand what was going on. I think he read me The Lord of the Rings when I was five, and by the time I was six, I had written my own version (called "The Lord of the Rings - MY Way") on a pack of post-it notes. It was all kinds of awesome....for one, I hated Pippin in the books, so I made him a girl and Frodo's sister. Who saves the Fellowship from a Green Gloop Monster. rofl I was cool.
Anyway, I've been a Tolkienite for as long as I can remember. It was worst when I was really little (like, six through eight) and no one my age knew what I was talking about. I have a very clear memory of talking to an ancient woman by the poolside as I put on my water-wings. I asked her if she'd ever read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.
"No," she said, "But I've seen the commercial for the cartoon."
That was good enough for me. I launched into this long one-sided discussion about hobbits. heart  

[Puddum]

miss_phantasmagoria

My dad read The Hobbit to me while I was in the womb. And then again once I was a toddler and able to understand what was going on. I think he read me The Lord of the Rings when I was five, and by the time I was six, I had written my own version (called "The Lord of the Rings - MY Way") on a pack of post-it notes. It was all kinds of awesome....for one, I hated Pippin in the books, so I made him a girl and Frodo's sister. Who saves the Fellowship from a Green Gloop Monster. rofl I was cool.
Anyway, I've been a Tolkienite for as long as I can remember. It was worst when I was really little (like, six through eight) and no one my age knew what I was talking about. I have a very clear memory of talking to an ancient woman by the poolside as I put on my water-wings. I asked her if she'd ever read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.
"No," she said, "But I've seen the commercial for the cartoon."
That was good enough for me. I launched into this long one-sided discussion about hobbits. heart

lol! That sounds so adorable! I'm gonna make sure my kids are like that when I have them. My boyfriend might not like that idea, though, seeing as he's not a big LotR nerd like me. xP  

[The_Great_White_Snark]

Puddum

miss_phantasmagoria

My dad read The Hobbit to me while I was in the womb. And then again once I was a toddler and able to understand what was going on. I think he read me The Lord of the Rings when I was five, and by the time I was six, I had written my own version (called "The Lord of the Rings - MY Way") on a pack of post-it notes. It was all kinds of awesome....for one, I hated Pippin in the books, so I made him a girl and Frodo's sister. Who saves the Fellowship from a Green Gloop Monster. rofl I was cool.
Anyway, I've been a Tolkienite for as long as I can remember. It was worst when I was really little (like, six through eight) and no one my age knew what I was talking about. I have a very clear memory of talking to an ancient woman by the poolside as I put on my water-wings. I asked her if she'd ever read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.
"No," she said, "But I've seen the commercial for the cartoon."
That was good enough for me. I launched into this long one-sided discussion about hobbits. heart

lol! That sounds so adorable! I'm gonna make sure my kids are like that when I have them. My boyfriend might not like that idea, though, seeing as he's not a big LotR nerd like me. xP

Hehe, yeah, I'm gonna raise my kids on mother's milk and Tolkien....bwahahaha.

Oh oh oh, does anyone who was an LotR fan when they were children remember the ending of that Ralph Baski film, The Return of the King (or was it The Hobbit?), when Gandalf explains Hobbit Evolution (single goofiest scene in cartoon history) and says that 'Someday, many years from now, people will look back and ask themselves "Am I a Hobbit?" It's so incredibly cheesy to watch now, but I remember watching that scene while in a hotel somewhere, going to the window, and asking myself, "Am I a Hobbit?"

rofl  

[Puddum]

I haven't seen the entire film but I've found it on youtube and it's looking pretty dreadful although some of the art is really lovely. I'm amazed at the people on imdb that claim it to be superior to Peter Jackson's trilogy because it's more true to the books. So far I haven't seen anything to back that up but I haven't seen the whole thing, so who knows? Still, it seems an adaption that actually WORKS would be more true to the spirit of the books than a crappy cartoon that uses some dialogue verbatim from the books and hacks up the rest of the story.

Anyway for those who want to see it for free: http://youtube.com/watch?v=dcGhoSYKyuc&feature=related