The Hobbit Meme

I don't have time right now to follow along on the read-along at The Striped Armchair, but J.R.R. Tolkien is one of my all-time favorite authors, and has been for over half of my life now. As a result, I've modified the questions to suit.

When did you first hear of The Hobbit?

 A friend gave me her copy of The Hobbit, the Rankin-Bass illustrated edition. I still have it, with some repairs to the binding. I wish it was still easily available to be found, as it's a perfect introductory version for kids, although the size of the book is definitely awkward. The illustrations are stills from the animated movie (Amazon.com link) they did.

Have you read it before? If so tell us about that experience.

I've definitely read the book before, although it's been years since. Given that, I really should do the read-along. Perhaps I'll read and review it this month independently. In which case, I'll have to say thanks for getting me inspired.

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? Or perhaps you still feel rather skeptical towards the whole idea of wizards and dwarfs and magic? What was your introduction to the genre?

J.R.R/ Tolkien, with The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings was my introduction to fantasy as I tend to think of it. Nowadays, I really love both fantasy and science fiction, but I definitely remember for the longest time refusing to read the genre because I thought it was more or less a rip-off of Tolkien and The Lord of the
Rings. Essentially, I was a Tolkien snob :). More or less, I've gotten over that, but there are times when I run into books where I still feel that's the case. No, I'm not going to name names here.

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?

 That depends on if I do get to reading it, and if so, which edition I choose. If it's the paperback (Amazon.com link), it'll probably be over the course of a few days. If one of the hardcovers I have (probably the Annotated Edition (Amazon.com link)), the read will probably take longer.