Book # 29 The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein

 It has probably been about fifteen years since I had first read The Hobbit. I remember really enjoying it, but didn't remember too many of the details except that there were a whole bunch of dwarfs, a few trolls, the encounter with Gollum, a giant dragon and a huge battle at the end. Actually that does sum of most of the book.

Reading it a second time was just as enjoyable. Bilbo, Gandalf and the dwarfs do have quite a few adventures for being a fairly short book. I can see how Peter Jackson could extend a five page battle sequence into a forty minute 3-D CGI epic battle for the ages and thus need to break the book into three movies.

The premise is pretty simple. Gandalf and a bunch of dwarfs recruit hobbit Bilbo Baggins to go with them on their quest to reclaim the treasure that was abandoned by their ancestors when the dragon Smaug attacked their mountain home. They have a bunch of adventures encountering trolls, goblins, elves, and giant eagles. At one point Bilbo becomes separated from everyone else while travelling through some tunnels under a mountain that is filled with goblins. While he is lost, Bilbo encounters the creature Gollum and plays a riddle game with him and is able to escape with Gollum's magic ring. Of course this is the ring that is so incredibly important in the sequel, The Lord of the Rings.


I'd easily recommend the book to just about anyone. It was in my top 50 before and is staying there. Once I had finished it,  I was tempted to re-read The Lord of the Rings next, but I think I'll force myself to wait on that for a bit. I'm giving The Hobbit an A+, but have to say that I thing the sequel is an even better read. It is basically another quest involving a hobbit, Gandalf and dwarfs, but the stakes are so much higher and the scope is larger. Also, the style of the two are somewhat different. The Hobbit has a friendly narrator that makes little jokes and doesn't make anything seem like the end of the world, while The Lord of the Rings is presented much more seriously and isn't geared toward children as much as The Hobbit is.

One last thing... it wasn't until I finished the book that I remembered that this existed....




Here are my updated rankings

1.Invisible Man
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
3.The Hobbit
4. A Farewell to Arms
5.The Stand
6. The Name of the Rose
7.Frankenstein
8. Wind in the Willows
9.Anne of Green Gables
10. Rebecca
11.Anna Karenina
12. Sons and Lovers
13. Winnie-the-Pooh
14. Mrs. Dalloway
15.Atlas Shrugged