My dad gave me The Hobbit when I was still in primary school (not sure how old I was... nine or ten?) and I loved it. I read The Lord Of The Rings in between the release of the Fellowship film and Return of the King and enjoyed them very much. For my 17th birthday I was given a collector's hardback set of the trilogy and a book of Maps of Middle-Earth and fell completely in love with them all over again, our old copies were falling to bits so I was afraid to read them again in case I destroyed them :P Got The Silmarillion not long ago and was practically inhaling it by the end, I loved it so much :)
Favorite Tolkien character:
Glorfindel. No question. He's absolutely fascinating, cool, awesome and mysterious all at once. Pippin as well, whether it's the films or the books, I just find him lovely. And the Scottish accent didn't do much harm either :P
And from the films, Figwit's pretty cool too ^^