How did you Come across these Books

[Lalwendë]

My oft-repeated tale is that I nicked the books off my cool older brother. He had disappeared for weeks on end with these books so I wanted to read 'em too, because he was cool, and because anything so absorbing just had to be good. I was about 12 and as my mother once said "I would read the side of the cornflakes box if I had nothing else around to read". I'd previously had obsessions with Brer Rabbit, Alice In Wonderland, Heidi (there are about 4 Heidi books, did you know she even grows up and has kids?.... ), What Katy Did and Mallory Towers. It was time for me to move on to the serious stuff. Hey presto, the parents were saddled with two Tolkien obsessed offspring.

I still have that set of books now, battered and creased, and they are worth more to me than any of the posh collectible ones I own.

[Folwren]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

My oft-repeated tale is that I nicked the books off my cool older brother. He had disappeared for weeks on end with these books so I wanted to read 'em too, because he was cool, and because anything so absorbing just had to be good. I was about 12 and as my mother once said "I would read the side of the cornflakes box if I had nothing else around to read". I'd previously had obsessions with Brer Rabbit, Alice In Wonderland, Heidi (there are about 4 Heidi books, did you know she even grows up and has kids?.... ), What Katy Did and Mallory Towers. It was time for me to move on to the serious stuff. Hey presto, the parents were saddled with two Tolkien obsessed offspring.

I still have that set of books now, battered and creased, and they are worth more to me than any of the posh collectible ones I own.

Three days? It took me about three weeks (more, probably). Although I was still at school so that might have had something to do with my slow reading!

Always keep your first set of books, and keep them carefully, they will one day be a great treasure to you and they are irreplaceable.

Golly, you sound like me.

I've kept the first copies I ever read. I actually read the books that my dad got when he was in...highschool, I think. He never read them, but they were old when I got my hands on them. By the time they'd lived through being read by four of us five kids, the FotR was in five parts, but the other two survived it rather well.

-- Folwren

[Laitoste]

Originally Posted by Folwren

I've kept the first copies I ever read. I actually read the books that my dad got when he was in...highschool, I think. He never read them, but they were old when I got my hands on them. By the time they'd lived through being read by four of us five kids, the FotR was in five parts, but the other two survived it rather well.

My first copy was my dad's from high school, too. I have another set for annotating, as these first ones nurtured two generations of geeks and are far too precious to be scribbled in!

I vaguely remember reading the Fellowship quite young, but wasn't interested until my teacher started reading the Hobbit to us in class. I read the Fellowship and The Two Towers two years later, but moved before I could read the Return of the King. In other words, I was "normal" for a whole 2 months of my high school career.

[Rikae]

Well, this sounds terribly silly, but my first crush was on a friend of my dad's (I was eight, he was 27) who ran a bookstore and was a Tolkien expert. I was already a bookworm, and so of course I had to read the books that so fascinated the object of my affection! My first copies of the were cheap paperbacks which, alas, are long gone, but that lovely man actually gave me a copy of the so-called "Big Red Book of Death", which is at this moment, 19 years later, sitting beside my keyboard.

[LadyBrooke]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I was about 12 and as my mother once said "I would read the side of the cornflakes box if I had nothing else around to read". I'd previously had obsessions with Brer Rabbit, Alice In Wonderland, Heidi (there are about 4 Heidi books, did you know she even grows up and has kids?.... ), What Katy Did and Mallory Towers.

My story is somewhat similar. A few months before my dad had bought the dvds of the movies and we had watched all three of them straight through. As soon as I found out that there were books I knew I wanted them. So for my twelfth birthday I was allowed to order about half a dozen books. I can't even remember what most of them are now but one of them was Lord of the Rings. I read it straight through that weekend and then carried it around for weeks rereading passages. It has now lasted longer then any of my other obsessions like Nancy Drew or Harry Potter. Which is saying a lot since I own over a hundred ND books.

As a side note you're the first person that I've ever heard of that's read What Katy Did besides me.

[Dilettante]

My dad would mention The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in passing for as long as I could remember......I would always roll my eyes and pass them off as "one of Dad's kitschy science fiction novels". (NOTE: That was before I became a sci-fi fan myself. Mind your words, you may eat them some day.)

When I was in the hospital once (I was about 14 or 15 at the time) my dad read the first part of The Fellowship of the Ring to me. I was mildly interested, but didn't give the story much thought afterward.

My dad had been telling me The Fellowship of the Ring was about to become a movie a good month or two before it came out. About a week before the movies came out (December 2001) I passed my dad's battered old paperbacks on the bookshelf (you know, the tan paperbacks with the Eye and the ring script on the front in the red slipcase, I think they are second edition Allen & Unwin but I'm not sure) and thought "Hmm...maybe I will give these a try.

I.......WAS.......HOOKED

It's been a great nine years ever since that day.