How were you introduced to Tolkien?

[Olórin the White]

hooboy, so this is somewhat of an ironic tale. My dad has always appreciated Tolkien, and we had a copy of TH in the house for as long as I remember, but I had no idea what it was about nor did I really care to find out. Oddly enough, I loved reading as a kid, especially some of the great classics of our times (my mom always complained when I insisted on walking through the mall with my nose in my book...one eye on the page and one eye on passing traffic to ensure that I didn't hit anything. I also had a tendency to read past my bedtime by the light of my nightlight, probably to the detriment of my vision today ). Not only that, but I live in a part of the world that looks JUST like Middle Earth, and is as beautiful as any of the scenery that is witnessed in the Jackson films, and as a result I had a curious love affair with the outdoors (trees, forests, mountains, and streams in particular). My eventually love affair with Tolkien's world seems inevitable, yet it nearly wasn't so.
When FOTR came out, my dad took me and a friend to see it. I'll never forget that experience...it was New Years Eve and the rather old and dingy theater was nearly empty. I will also never forget the ache in my back after sitting the full three hours in the same position, arms linked with my friend out of fear. For us, the orcs and other terrible creatures were terrifying, especially when we had not been exposed to that world before. It quite overwhelmed me! I had always loved the fantastical, but have never really been exposed to 'fantasy' like that of Tolkien's world.
What a travesty. For a year I thought little of Lord of the Rings, and then the Two Towers came out. One of my cousins, who is also a close friend, had been talking about it for a while and I thought, why not? So I gave it another chance. This time my eyes were opened. I loved it and needed to know more! Shortly thereafter my family went to hawaii for a week and I brought along TTT. I read it on the beach and was done in a couple days...and was in complete shock at the ending! I had to know what happened to Frodo and Sam! My mom on the other hand refused to buy me ROTK while we were on vacation because it would be cheaper at home. It was awful. I promptly read FOTR when we got home and then finally got my hands on a library copy of ROTK. Then I read the Sil, Unfinished Tales, countless biographies and essays on Tolkien, and I never looked back.
I had always been an elf at heart but had just never known it. I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't given LOTR another chance when TTT came out.

[The Might]

Ah, a nice thread indeed!

So guess I could give you my story...
I read The Hobbit first as a Romanian translation when I was about 8 and found the story quite interesting. However it was only until about the movies that I discovered LotR, The Sil and the UT.

[Diane C]

From the "LOTR" CD of the BBC radio play back in the 90s when I was about 12 and living in my home town of Bloemfontein, South Africa.

Listening to the play made it easier for me to pick up the LOTR books and begin my journey into all things Tolkien.

[Faramir Jones]

Like Mithalwen, I became interested in Tolkien when, as a child, I saw the televised Jackanory adaptation of The Hobbit. I agree that the voices were done really well, particularly that of Bilbo done by Bernard Cribbins.

Interestingly enough, though I liked the story, it was not until later, when I was 12, that I actually read The Hobbit. My family was moving house, and when we were packing up things, a copy my parents had turned up, which they let me read. The same was true of a copy of The Lord of the Rings, though it took me far longer to read that!

[skip spence]

I dunno, to be honest I can't remember exactly how it happened. When I was young, around 10 I suppose, I was briefly into RPGs like Dungeons And Dragons and also read LotR for the first time. I can't remember if I was into RPGs because I read LotR or if it was the other way around but I did like the books, especially FotR. There was much I didn't understand at the time though and it wasn't until I watched the Bakshi cartoon a few years later I realised Saruman and Sauron were different people for example. I'm not entirely sure if I made in through the whole thing although I believe I did. I also owned the LotR RPG and for a good many years I even thought that Balrogs had wings - god forbid! - due to a picture in that game.

Then came puberty and my attention shifted to other fields of study.

It was to be many years before Tolkien came into my life again. In my early 20's - a year or two before the movies came out - I lived in Spain for a while. During a lazy and stoned Sunday afternoon I decided to pick up that copy of the Fellowship of the Ring I had noticed on my mate's bookshelf and was immediately hooked. I finished it within a week then went cold turkey as I wasn't able to get hold of the other two books in English or Swedish - my Spanish wasn't good enough. I had to tell my parents at home to go and buy them for me and then send them by mail. After a what seemed an eternity they finally arrived and I haven't looked back since. The Silmarillion was a revelation when I first read it and Unfinished Tales was a wonderful fix as well. Now I'm digging into the HoME while wishing there were more works by the Tolkien out there. I'm not really a fantasy fan though and can't really bring myself to pick up non-Tolkien works (the few times I did in my teens was a disappointment). Should I?

[Lindale]

Once upon a time in a strict all girls Catholic school where even Harry Potter was infamous, a little girl called Lindale who would have her tenth birthday in two weeks saw in the Sunday paper a comparison of JRRT and the forbidden Rowling. She hounded her father, who never really was able to resist her when she was pouting, and three days before her birthday she had a copy of TH, bought at an insane price in the expensive bookstore because the local bookstore currently had none in stock.

The following Christmas, Lindale asked for her usual Harry Potter (number four, I think) and for the complete Lord of the Rings. She got so excited about her Christmas presents, she didn't really think that shoving FotR in her school bag might catch the nuns' attention. When a teacher of home economics saw the poor little girl reading a book that advocated wizards, she confiscated the book. Lindale already had a record of reading HP. She was in bad trouble.

During lunchbreak Lindale was very scared; her Christmas present was gone! She tried not to remember Gollum back in TH screaming about his birthday present. Struggling with whatever wits she had, she headed to the telephone booths and called her mother.

...and thus began the bothersome affair of this little girl's book, which included her father threatening the teacher and some of the nuns. And then Lindale thought, whatever trouble that book has caused! It must be good. When she got her book back, weeks later and with a formal apology, Lindale read it very carefully.

And that is how Lindale learned of JRRT, read TH and LotR, and learned about the Inquisition too.

Two years later Lindale hounded her aging father for a copy of Sil and UT. And a little over three months ago she had a tantrum again, claiming she was the last girl without a CoH. Predictably, that spoiled brat has all Tolkien books her father and she could find.

[Andsigil]

I first got interested in Tolkien when this came out in 1977.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077687/

I was 9 years old and ran around the house with a homemade Sting, made of cardboard and aluminum foil, slaying imaginary spiders.