Reading, cooking, eating, drinking, talking, playing... as many of these at the same time as I can.
First Lord of the Rings reading experience:
In Germany, while revising for my MA viva. I really struggled, I understood the words and didn't get the language at all. A few images stayed with me: Eowyn facing the Fell Beast, the hobbits resting inside a hollow tree, the Ents swaying their great branches... The film made me read it again, and I was hooked!
Favorite Tolkien character:
Difficult. My cousin Fredegar of course, who does something really mad and brave, once in his life. 'But Fatty Bolger had not been idle'. Eowyn, with whose frustration every female can identify, and who in the end understands that there are other paths to glory than commemoration in 'songs of slaying'. Sam who is a great role model as a caring, nurturing man.
