Who is the "Tolkien Master" in your house?

[Glirdan]

I read The Hobbit first when I was about 13 ( ) I saw the FotR and TTT before i read ANY of the books. And it took me about 1 week to read all the books. But now I read the books more than I watch the movie and I wish that I read the books before I saw the movies because the books always have more information in them.

[Elrowen Tinúviel]

I am definately the Tolkien/LOTR freak in my house.

My dad (who doesn't count anymore since the mutiny ) might have read the books one time, and has seen the movies... but hasn't "gotten it"... like, when we're talking about it, he'll be like "the dead men of what? "
My mom hasn't read any of the books, she saw the movies though... but doesn't take it seriously ('cept for Faramir.... she likes him...). Pretty much what she knows aside from casually watching the movies has been drilled into her brain by my incessant talking on the matter.
My older brother and one of my younger sisters have read the books, and seen the movies. They don't really get into it though. My sister does more so than my brother... fortunately (though when I start talking of the Elves, she starts walking away... I wonder why....) *looks innocent*
The others in my family have seen the movies, but that's about as far as it goes.

I haven't yet been able to convince anyone to read the Silmarillion... unfortunately. And as far as learning Elvish? Everyone thinks I'm crazy to even want to learn.

-Elrowen Tinúviel

[brim]

Looks around and shrugs. No one else in the household has read the books sure they've seen the movie a couple times... but who forced them to go. there is so much more in the books that movies can't show. (Peter Jackson did do a fantastic job hands down) Although I don't really understand ,and probibly never will fully, some of the great aspects of tolkein's writing. I still am the tolkein freak in the house.

apologies to grammar and spelling my computer doesn't have word perfect.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I share a house with a two postgraduates, neither of whom knows or particularly wants to know a lot about Tolkien. In my family I am the undisputed authority, although they're all becoming conversant with him thanks to my incessant recommendations. My sister has read LotR, and my mother has been reading it on and off for about a year (busy people have little time for reading); my brother and my father are tougher nuts to crack, since neither tends to do much recreational reading. They have seen the films, though.

This is quite ironic, since it was my parents who first got me interested in Tolkien by buying me a copy of The Hobbit for Christmas when I was eight. Apparently it was chosen on the basis of the synopsis on its dust jacket because it sounded like the sort of story I might enjoy. More than twenty years on, I'm studying for an M.A. in Tolkien's field, largely thanks to that one gift. If I'm any kind of an expert, I think that they deserve at least some of the credit.

I'm not sure who knows the most about Tolkien on the course. I do know an up-and-coming runologist who has learned the Tengwar, which I still haven't mastered; and as one would expect my supervisor knows a lot more than I do about Tolkien's sources and professional work. When I really want to be humbled, though, I come to the dear old Barrow Downs and read the arguments in The Books; or I open up the HoME and consider the scholarship that went into Tolkien's recreational writing. There's always a better authority somewhere.