I saw The Hobbit in December and I bought the LOTR and started to read the first chapter and then realize I should read The Hobbit first. I saw the 1977 NBC cartoon when I was a kid, but I did see any of the LOTR, not even the movies when they came out in 2001. I liked the movies, but I liked the music from the movie even more.
I really love the book. I cannot get enough of the works of Tolkien.
The Hobbit is much more fun than LOTR; a friend found it when we were both in 7th grade, in the fairly tiny school library, and he claimed to read it, I really did. :’) Fellowship was around in Ballantine’s paperback edition, one of those student ones, we used to get weekly or monthly lists of cheap priced editions. Eventually I discovered that the rest of the trilogy was around, same edition basically, in the box. I spent my 13 year old summer reading it a couple times, and I think I reread the Hobbit in between. It had a profound influence on me, I wanted to live in a Hobbit house dug into one of the hillsides around here. I would have done it too, if it hadn’t been for the building codes and the whole you-have-to-work-for-a-living thing. (’: