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Salty Coqui
Rivendell
Sep 9 2008, 1:37am
Post #2 of 85
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It seems an age ago, or more like 16 years or so. He was ten years older and wiser (so I thought). He knew I was a big science fiction fan and told me I just HAD to read this and after I was done I'd thank him. Well... The sex was great and I married him soon after. Unfortunately, we did not live happily every after. I think I should just have had my way with him and married the book instead! 
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Eruwestial37
Rohan
Sep 9 2008, 1:37am
Post #3 of 85
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I read Lord of the Rings because I fell in love with Legolas in Two Towers! I needed to see how the story ended.
Lest anyone think I'm a teen, I just turned 55.
Now I've read the Silmarillion 3 times and am a total Tolkien fan. I have to credit Orlando's portrayal of Legolas with getting me started.
Good question, Arwen'd daughter!
Eruwestial
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Kelvarhin
Half-elven
Sep 9 2008, 1:47am
Post #4 of 85
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the discussions my mum and older brothers were having about LOTR. I was only 8 and they told me I was too young (little) to fully understand it and I should try The Hobbit instead. Read the first chapter of The Hobbit and threw it away saying it was so childish. Picked up Fellowship and loved it so much I finished it in a night and then attacked TTT and ROTK. Mum's comment was "Well she's my daughter and YOUR sister!" LOL.
Miss those times, we used to have some great conversations.
Great threat AD.
*hugs*
Kel x
Valinor, O Valinor
Andavë yányë hyarya
Tumna yá nyèna minya fëa
An Valinor, lissë Eldamar
Kelvarhin's Universe~~~~~~~Laerasea's Travelling TORn Journal
In the land of TORnadoes...where the brilliant play (with thanks to grammaboodawg :) )
Is TORn...Is Good
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
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Sep 9 2008, 1:58am
Post #5 of 85
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I found it on a friend's bookshelf
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during a long summer vacation visit (I was 14). She had an appointment one afternoon and I was left on my own for a few hours, so I raided her bookshelf for something I hadn't read and which was long enough to take me more than an hour or so to read. I can't remember whether I started with The Hobbit or FOTR. Whichever it was, I picked up the first book, got sucked in, then had to grab every spare moment I could find for the rest of the week to finish the others at top speed. I later discovered my dad's old paperback box set at home and re-read to catch what I missed during my original speed-reading session.
I returned to them a few years later during a long illness, read them twice back-to-back and that's when I really fell in love. It wasn't long after that I went looking for a group to discuss them with and found TORN.
Silverlode
"Of all faces those of our familiares are the ones both most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult really to see with fresh attention. They have become like the things which once attracted us by their glitter, or their colour, or their shape, and we laid hands on them, and then locked them in our hoard, acquired them, and acquiring ceased to look at them.
Creative fantasy, because it is mainly trying to do something else [make something new], may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds. The gems all turn into flowers or flames, and you will be warned that all you had (or knew) was dangerous and potent, not really effectively chained, free and wild; no more yours than they were you." -On Fairy Stories
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Penthe
Gondor
Sep 9 2008, 2:03am
Post #6 of 85
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Because of the Bakshi film, I think
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I don't remember the sequence, because I was very young, but I think my parents took us to see the Bakshi film (maybe) at the cinema, along with another family.
The Dad of that family was a big fan of LOTR. My parents had already read the Hobbit to us kids out loud. So I decided I was going to read LOTR as well. It took me about three months, because I had to keep stopping for a bit of a think and a rest, but I was hooked immediately. I suspect I was trying to show off a little initially, but once I was caught up in the story that kind of dropped away.
No improvement is too small or trivial to be worthwhile.
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Laerasëa
Tol Eressea
Sep 9 2008, 2:17am
Post #7 of 85
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I actually just answered this question in reply to Ainu Laire's post, but I guess I was also trying to squeeze in a couple of other topics there, and rushed it a bit.
So, when I was in lower school, I was a big reading dork. I mostly stuck to books that friends were reading so I could discuss them with them, although I didn't usually enjoy the books too much. At home, I had kind of stockpiled mythology books like crazy, since I have always been a big fan of mythology, any type (and really, you can have mythology books to suit any age- I think I still have all of them, and I definitely still collect them).
Well, upon entering fifth grade (where our jr high starts), one of the first people that I met was the librarian, Ms. B. Since the jr high library was so much bigger than the lower school one, I didn't even know where to start as far as checking out books went! I would check out five or six a week, and devour them as many times each as I possibly could. Well, obviously, the librarian was thrilled; anyone who liked reading was totally welcome in her library! So, she began to make lists for me; I had already checked out most of the books that were ostensably interesting to me by the end of the first year: I was rather close-minded back then. So in 6th grade, I'd go to her library every week, and there would be a stack of books already reserved for me. It was there that I began to learn just how cool reading could be; because of her, I read biographies, autobiographies, books about writing, books of poetry, books of essays. It wasn't all nonfic- I had developed a taste for Orson Scott Card and McCaffrey by 7th grade, and I got really into the Bronte sisters by 8th. So one day, one of the books in the stack was The Hobbit. I was curious to see that it was an illustrated version, but I figured that it must be good if Ms. B was recommending it to me. So, I read it, and loved it. I have no idea what attracted me to it at the time- it was clear to me at the time that it was an adventure story for children, but I totally loved it. When I asked for it again a week later, she gave me instead LOTR, all three books. I even remember what they looked like- they were the editions that had movie pics on the cover and pics of the character on the back top border. FOTR had the Shire- that was the one that I read the most before starting TTT. Well, I was hooked on those for a while, until that began to fade off, and left me back where I began, with Card and McCaffrey, until the movies came out, and I reread the books each time another movie came out, and so I became a mild fan then. I had the books on my shelves, and I read them about once a year (but repeating books is actually quite common for me, so that's not really saying much). Then, I took Menelwyn's class, re-signed up on TORn, and started the Sil. The rest, as they say, as they say (since so many people write "as they say," I think you have to repeat it), is history.
Awesome thread, A's Daughter! 
********************************
Traveling Journal Official Site
Thanks, Kel, for the amazing site!
Site Updates:
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There is also a comments page- anyone can leave a comment or question, but please stick to TORn rules on posting!
The journal is in NZ!
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
- Albert Einstein
"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is."
- Yogi Berra
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad."
- Salvador Dali
(This post was edited by laerasea on Sep 9 2008, 2:19am)
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Mar
Gondor
Sep 9 2008, 2:18am
Post #8 of 85
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Around 1965 or so - because I wanted to
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which is pretty much why I do a lot of things.
I can't remember how I came across it but I have always been a reader so most likely heard about it through the grapevine. I have kept a set with me everywhere I have gone since that time.
Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable - fall asleep and miss your life.
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gracie
Bree
Sep 9 2008, 2:44am
Post #9 of 85
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 Its all good to have read the book because of the movie! I know many, many people who are in the same boat!
PJ and his empire are very responsible, and after all if it wasn't for the LOTR franchise, I probably wouldn't be here.
warm wishes: R
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Aerin
Grey Havens
Sep 9 2008, 3:45am
Post #10 of 85
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When it was published in the U.S.
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A friend of mine in high school heard about LOTR from his older brother, who was in college, and he told my circle of friends about it, and we all read it at the same time, discussing it each day when we saw each other at school. Such fun! Oddly, though I loved the books from the start, I didn't re-read them for about 15 years. I did read "The Hobbit," but was disappointed to find that it was a children's book. My paperbacks were lost at my parents' house, but I finally bought the hardcover edition from BOMC and re-read them after I was out of grad school and working in my first "real job." I then immediately bought and read the Sil, UT, and vol. II of Book of Lost Tales. I think I re-read LOTR again after reading the other Tolkien books. But when the first movie came out, I hadn't read the books in years. When I got back from the theater (a matinee showing), I went straight to the bookshelf and started re-reading them again.
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Kimi
Forum Admin
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Sep 9 2008, 4:20am
Post #11 of 85
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We'd read "The Hobbit", and kept going.
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"We" being Mr Kimi and me.
In my English class, we'd been asked for book recommendations, and one boy recommended a book I'd never heard of, "The Hobbit". Thank you, Ray G., wherever you are now! The Mr and I got hold of it, read it and really liked it. We found out there was a "sequel", and bought that, too (I think these must have been the first purchases we ever made together). We read it aloud to each other. We fell in love with the books as well as each other.
We still have those very battered old paperbacks.
My writing (including The Passing of Mistress Rose)
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
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Ataahua
Forum Admin
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Sep 9 2008, 4:47am
Post #12 of 85
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and thought I might as well give this Ring book a go.
An inauspicious start to what turned out to be a quiet love affair.
Celebrimbor: "Pretty rings..."
Dwarves: "Pretty rings..."
Men: "Pretty rings..."
Sauron: "Mine's better."
"Ah, how ironic, the addictive qualities of Sauron’s master weapon led to its own destruction. Which just goes to show, kids - if you want two small and noble souls to succeed on a mission of dire importance... send an evil-minded b*****d with them too." - Gandalf's Diaries, final par, by Ufthak.
Ataahua's stories
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RosieLass
Valinor
Sep 9 2008, 4:56am
Post #13 of 85
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And as I read them, I realized that this was the story she'd been telling me on all our walks home from school.
She was a great storyteller! (She saved my bacon more than once in English class, telling me the gist of the book we were supposed to have read, when there was a quiz I wasn't ready for!)
"Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brains."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brains."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything."
- A. A. Milne
http://mallika.vox.com/
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Ainu Laire
Tol Eressea
Sep 9 2008, 5:03am
Post #14 of 85
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My middle school had a required reading session
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We'd read about half an hour every day for the whole year. I was on the search for new books, and then I saw the trailer for FOTR. I thought it looked really cool, so I picked up the Hobbit, which I knew was the prologue to it (my dad had a 4-book set from the 70s). I read the Hobbit and LOTR through those reading sessions until March or so of 2002. I liked it then, but it wasn't to the point of total love yet.
From the summer of 2002 to the end of 2003 I read LOTR out loud to my younger brother. I also read the Hobbit for class in 2003. The summer of 2003 is when my obsession started to bloom with the first reading of the Silmarillion, and when I created my first website and started recording Elvish I found in the books, and started creating LOTR backgrounds and such, as well as writing fan fiction. In 8th grade I reread LOTR and the Sil. The peak of my obsession at that time was December 2003 was with the release of ROTK.
I started dying out in my love at the end of 8th grade, mid-2004 and after the Oscars... but then I discovered three things: TORn's message boards, art, and conventions. I went with a couple friends to the Comic Con for the first time, and I started posting here. My love for Tolkien completely blossomed again with these things. I started drawing LOTR characters like mad, started participating in TORn, and started convention going. And now I haven't been un-geeky since. I would have it no other way.
As I reread LOTR now in college, I am finding so many new things that I did not realize when I read it so long ago. While I've been reading (and writing) fan fiction often so I know the story very well, the actual text escaped me a bit. A rereading was definitely in order.
*sighs* Oh, Tolkien, you have no idea what you have created... :D
My LJ
My art site
NARF since age 8, when I refused to read the Hobbit because the cover looked boring and icky.
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Peredhil lover
Valinor
Sep 9 2008, 5:18am
Post #16 of 85
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And how would you call *my* reasons? 
Tried to read the book maybe 10 years ago, but never got further than The Birthday. Admittedly, I didn't know the 'Hobbit', and I wasn't really interested in fantasy, either.
Then the movies came out, and I discussed with my friends if to go and watch, but they told me I'd not understand it without subtitles and without knowing the book. So I got curious, but wasn't sure I wanted to read it.
At the same time, in my old German forum, LotR was discussed, and I got even more curious. The others told me to start with the 'Hobbit' and leave out 'Concerning Hobbits' if it was too boring. Finally I made a deal with one of my online friends there - she'd read the first Diana Gabaldon novel if I'd read the Hobbit. So I checked out the 'Hobbit', liked it, borrowed LotR from one of my friends who owned it, started it again, got through it in five days - and the rest is history. I have never returned from Middle-earth since this first read in February 2003.
So you see, it's mainly the fault of this online friend Oh well, at least she fell for Diana Gabaldon, too, so she got something out of the deal, too. I look forward to see her face when she visits at the end of the year and has a look at the two and a half shelves of Tolkien books I've collected in the last few years 
I do not suffer from LotR obsession - I enjoy every minute of it.
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Draupne
Forum Admin
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Sep 9 2008, 8:50am
Post #17 of 85
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Very sensible woman :-)
And for those who wonder, yes, at some point in time (about 20 years ago) people could actually make me do things ...
,-)
(This post was edited by Draupne on Sep 9 2008, 8:51am)
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Kelvarhin
Half-elven
Sep 9 2008, 8:52am
Post #18 of 85
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God help anyone who tries now.
*runs away and hides*
Valinor, O Valinor
Andavë yányë hyarya
Tumna yá nyèna minya fëa
An Valinor, lissë Eldamar
Kelvarhin's Universe~~~~~~~Laerasea's Travelling TORn Journal
One book to rule them all
One book to find them
One book to bring them all
And in TORn bind them
In the land of TORnadoes...where the brilliant play
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Eledhwen
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Sep 9 2008, 9:02am
Post #19 of 85
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and loved it. And because I was young, and a fast reader (still am a fast reader, not so young), and LOTR had the advantage of being a long book with a story that I could appreciate and understand. Much more suitable for me than Empire of the Sun, which I read a year or two later!
Figwit Still Lives!
Calling for a Figwit cameo in The Hobbit since May 2008
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Peredhil lover
Valinor
Sep 9 2008, 10:15am
Post #20 of 85
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you love living dangerous and playing with the fire, don't you? 
I do not suffer from LotR obsession - I enjoy every minute of it.
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a.s.
Valinor
Sep 9 2008, 11:01am
Post #21 of 85
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my brother liked the books, and because at school lots of people made references to "hobbits" and because they had cool things written on their ring binders and notebooks like "Frodo lives", etc. And I wanted to be "in the know".
I can't actually remember the year I would have read LOTR for the first time, I am just guessing based on my high-school years. Somewhere in tenth or eleventh grade, probably. I read a paperback copy, long gone (I don't even remember what I did with those copies after I got my hardbacks).
It really doesn't matter "why" you picked up LOTR and starting reading; if the movies encouraged you to do so, that is great. It's at least as good as picking up a book so that you know why people are writing cool things on the outside of their ring binders! Like, ahem, me.
a.s.
"an seileachan"
Pooh began to feel a little more comfortable, because when you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.
Call Her Emily
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leo
Rohan
Sep 9 2008, 11:18am
Post #22 of 85
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My cousin gave me a copy of The Hobbit...
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... for my birthday I believe. I read it, loved it and went over to his place immediately to nick all of his Tolkien-books. I think I was a bit too young when I first read LOTR, but it definitely stuck on me!
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Kelvarhin
Half-elven
Sep 9 2008, 11:27am
Post #23 of 85
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you know what they say about cats and curiosity
Valinor, O Valinor
Andavë yányë hyarya
Tumna yá nyèna minya fëa
An Valinor, lissë Eldamar
Kelvarhin's Universe~~~~~~~Laerasea's Travelling TORn Journal
One book to rule them all
One book to find them
One book to bring them all
And in TORn bind them
In the land of TORnadoes...where the brilliant play
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Jazmine
Tol Eressea
Sep 9 2008, 1:06pm
Post #24 of 85
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to keep me busy during one particularly rainy half term holiday!
*Jazminatar the Brown*
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Draupne
Forum Admin
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Sep 9 2008, 1:35pm
Post #25 of 85
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as my RL name can mean "loved by Thor" I already have a god on my side. Things could get nasty, depending on what other god tried to interfere;-)
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