Thread: Your first time?

I'm 36 now, and the books have always been part of my life. My Mom was a huge fan of them, and the story is that she read them to my father every night when he was having problems with his vision.

I've read The Hobbit and the trilogy many, many times. I've read The Silmarillion once, but would like to try again with an edition that has good annotations. I have not read any of the other things.

Hmm , I remember having the Hobbit read to me on a kids tv story programme (Jackanory), when I was under 10 yrs old , which kinda hooked me , and I think I first read the LOTR trilogy in my teens
Am 41 now ,a lifelong fan, and have re-read the books over and over countless times , and have rcently the last few yrs been reading the Silmarillion aswell.

Sometime in the 80ies. Moving to 5th grade we got English in (German) school.
While they did their best to make me hate the language I thankfully discovered Tolkien and later Pratchett & Douglas Adams to learn to love it.

I was 7 years old, and my parents and I were going on our annual family vacation for the month of July. It was a boring train ride (took all day to get to our destination), and I had nothing to do besides read over my dad's shoulder - and he happened to be reading LOTR.

Up to that point, I was a child who didn't want to read books about people at all - only about animals. I'd tolerate stories about people as long as they were mostly about animals, and people in the stories were just on the sidelines, so to speak. If it was completely about people, I just wasn't interested. So LOTR was my first introduction to good literature about people - and I was hooked from the first page that I read, which was somewhere in the middle of the book.

For the rest of that family vacation, my Dad and I were stealing the book from each other to get the chance to keep reading it. We still have that book, torn binding and all, with sand from that vacation still falling out from between the pages.

I read The Hobbit shortly after that, and my Grandfather and I recorded several of the chapters from The Hobbit on his old tape-recorder - I still have the recording of part of "Riddles in the Dark" with Grandpa narrating and doing the voice of Bilbo, and me doing the voice of Gollum. So much fun!

I was 12, all children in Poland have to read this at school at this age (or at least they had to when I was in that age )
I tried reading LotR after, for fun, I managed to read Fellowship and half of Two Towers, but couldn't do it.
Now, some years later I realized that this translation was poor, and I rush through original text with great pleassure ^^

I was teenager. Reading "The Talisman" by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Traveling Jack was disappointed that his friend didn't own a single fiction book, "Not even Lord of the Rings." I think I said something like "YAY!!!!" at that point because I was given what might have been a good book recomendation.

I don't recall if I was in a library at the time or not.


Years later, I'm not as into reading as I used to be.

My first was about '84, possibly '85, so I was 6 or 7.
My mother had rented a VCR (Back in the day we rented it for a few days, didn't get one ourselves until '86) and when you rented a movie, you got a free cartoon rental as well, to keep the kids shut up. We were really into D&D, so she picked up "The Lord of The Rings", the animated one. Needless to say, for a 6 or 7 year old, it was awesome. Got the Hobbit book for the next Christmas.

It's difficult to remember when my first time was but I'm fairly sure that I saw the films and read the books around the same time. I had read the Hobbit before this but didn't enjoy it too much and know the connection to LotR.

I can remember as far back as my parents having friends over and them having a pirated copy (shock and awe, right?) on the telly. I was about 9 or 10 and thought it looked really boring and didn't watch it.

Bizarrely, my next memory of LotR is me sitting in the cinema watching the Return of the King with my dad, who fell asleep then went to leave about 3 times towards the end because he thought it had finished. By this point I had already read the LotR books maybe twice each but I still preferred the films.

So something happened between the ages of 10 - 12 for me to suddenly have gained an interest in them (most likely secondary school). All I know is that I was always into fantasy stuff and that might have lead me to it.

Though the moment I fell in love with Middle-earth lore was when I read the Silmarillion. My best friend gave me a copy that his dad had because neither of them liked it. I was roughly 13 and I read it over and over. This was also the time I got my first computer so I could sit in my room and just read about mythology and fantasy lore.

So though I don't and never did enjoy the LotR books, I love the films, I love the Silmarillion and I love the lore. The books just read a bit boring for me.

I found The Hobbit at the library when I was nine, maybe ten. Other than the certainty I wolfed it down greedily, I can remember nothing very specific about that first experience, other than the last sentence, my favorite of many, the enticingly terse yet frabjous post-script:

If you are interested in Hobbits you will learn a lot more about them in The Lord of the Rings:

1. THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
2. THE TWO TOWERS
3. THE RETURN OF THE KING

Little did I know.

I was 15 when i found a strange book in my house, a strange book with few letters "Lo Hobbit" (i'm italian), few hours and my spirit are totally in the middle earth, amazing!!! but after 1 week i finished to read, and now????, so my brother tell me of another book, The Lord of the Rings and booooooom!!
From 1982 years i entered the middle earth, i still there, read and read again the books, watch the movies and play LOTRO, my wife also, and i hope also my children in near future.

Thank professor Tolkien

I read the Hobbit in the third year of first school, which must of been when I was around seven or so as that's when the Fellowship of the Ring came out (which my dad promptly took me to see, there wasn't really any hesitance in my family as my favourite film in the first year of school was Zulu of all things) which was my first real introduction to the series. From there I read the next two books of the series and re-read the Hobbit, blissfully unaware of the Silmarillion's existence at that point but nevertheless completely engrossed in the universe alongside my then best friend, with whom I played the warhammer-esque figurine game (thing) with for a good while, though I wasn't a fantastic painter so I left that side of things to him.

LotRO was another reintroduction to Tolkien's works at (I think) around the age of thirteen or fourteen, by then I was already a fairly avid roleplayer and I became involved in Laurelin's community. Now, at the age of seventeen I'm beginning the Silmarillion at last as I become rather more interested in the precise details of the universe and its lore, especially regarding the Dwarves.

The Hobbit was the first book I read. I was about twelve when I finally got it after begging and pleading with my parents to buy me a copy for Christmas. The reason why I was desperate to read it was because I had gone looking through some of our old VHS tapes, and while I was digging through some of my dad's collection (mostly recordings of old sci-fi shows from the early 90s), I found the old 1977 cartoon of The Hobbit. Before then, I had only vague memories of my parents watching it on TV a long, long time ago (I remember Gollum throwing a conniption fit over losing his ring and Smaug asking "who are you and where do you come from?" clearly). I asked about it, but my dad told me that if I really wanted to watch it, I'd have to read the book first. So I did, and I enjoyed it very much. I ended up reading The Hobbit twice, actually. The second time around, I had to read it for a class. At the same time, I had just started reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. My dad let me borrow his old copies of the trilogy--and when I say old, I mean yellow, ancient and falling apart, so I had to take extra care of them so they wouldn't disintegrate before I finished them.

By this time, Peter Jackson's first LotR movie was coming out, and I had to really hurry up to finish reading the first book before December. My dad had shown me the other Lord of the Rings cartoons (Bakshi's cartoon and the Rankin/Bass version of RotK), so I kind of started slacking off a bit and actually didn't finish before I saw Fellowship in theaters on my birthday. I was blown away by the movie, and it left me wanting more. I ended up watching all three movies in theaters with my dad (all on my birthday those three years).

I've been meaning to read the Silmarillion for a while now, but I haven't had the time lately.

Hrr, I think I was in Year 9 or 10, which makes me around 14/15 when I read Lord of the Rings (it was the thing to do, that year - for some reason everyone in my friendship group read it at that time). I don't actually remember if I read The Hobbit before or after I read Lord of the Rings (I suspect it was after), and I didn't read the Silmarillion until I was in Uni, so 18/19. I never have done things in order =p

I was 16 and was with a group in France. One of the boys started asking everybody riddles. I'm terrible at riddles and I didn't guess any right. But I thought they were interesting and exceedingly clever. I asked him where he'd gotten them and he told me about The Hobbit.

As soon as I got home I got The Hobbit from the library. I was enchanted and amazed. I'd never heard of Tolkien before, but he was obviously a genius. I moved on to The Fellowship of the Ring, making the mistake of only getting that first volume from the library.

My whole life was changed by that book. (Literally. I met my husband because we were both fans of LOTR.) I finished FOTR in bed one night and was in tortures until I could get back to the library for the next one. I didn't make the same mistake twice. I grabbed both The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Once I finished them I knew I would never be the same person again.

Now I'm married to a fellow Tolkien fanatic, with two children named after Elves from the Silmarillion (Luthien Tinuviel and Maedhros), I run a music and lore event based kinship on Landroval and I'm an aspiring fantasy writer. Thank you, Tolkien.

I think I was eight years old the first time I picked up the Hobbit. Maybe seven. At any rate, I devoured that book and moved onto the Fellowship, where I bogged down - it took long enough to get going that my young mind got bored. A few years later I think I might have been twelve, I came back to it and was absolutely enthralled. The arrival of Gandalf and Erkenbrand at Helm's Deep in the nick of time got me so enthused I re-read it over and over. As did Sam and Shelob. And the Ride of the Rohirrim was the first time I recall ever having tears in my eyes as I read a book.

I read it at least twice a year and have for a quarter century. Some years later, still a teen, I read the Silmarillion. Now I've read almost everything out there, save Morgoth's Ring, of which I don't possess a copy. The Fall of Fingolfin, the Fall of Gondolin, and Beren and Luthien all moved me greatly.

I drew up my own world and set up my own history in part because of this. Some day I hope to write a story out of it.

I was seven when my grandmother, a Tolkien buff herself, gave me a copy of The Hobbit. I was satisfied for a year or two, reading that over and over again, and it remains one of my favorite fantasy books today. I got to the trilogy by nine or so, and by that time I was alternating between Tolkien and Jacques for quite a while. I left the series for a while to plough through the Discworld, which was immensely fun, and sort of ambled for a rather long time. Now I'm getting through the Silmarillion, which is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful works I've ever read.

I was about 5, my Grandma had given my brother a nice boxed set of Lord of the Rings, and a copy of the Hobbit. He had no interest, being 12 and into bikes, so I ended up with them. I taught myself how to read with the Hobbit, (and alot of Mom time), and have been reading voraciously ever since.

I was never allowed to read any fantasy books as a kid, because my parents saw a tract by Jack T. Chick that said if I was into swords & sorcery I'd kill myself. Sooooo... I didn't read the Hobbit until I was about twenty or so (after about age 14 I just sort of forgot that the genre existed. My parents didn't keep me locked up or anything until I was 20. Just thought I'd clarify that.)

On a side note, I probably gained five pounds the first time I read TH and LOTR. There's just something about those books that makes me want to eat bacon...

My bro had to do a project on The Hobbit in like 1st grade, which meant I had to do a project on The Hobbit. He's severely dyslexic, so I always ended up helping. Anyway, it was a fascinating book and then I devoured through the Trilogy and researched all the lore online. The movies came out when I was ten, and 'too young' to see them in theatre. I never finished the Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales, they're still sitting on my shelf.

My first time was in my girlfriend's basement while her parents were out. I was 16.


Yes I'm talking about LOTR, what were you thinking? Her parents were huge readers and I basically used their basement as a library. They were massive Tolkien fans, had all his stuff including a lot of "supplement" stuff by other writers.

How big of Tolkien fans were they? My girlfriend's name was Arwen.

Originally Posted by Lekkric

My first time was in my girlfriend's basement while her parents were out. I was 16.


Yes I'm talking about LOTR, what were you thinking? Her parents were huge readers and I basically used their basement as a library. They were massive Tolkien fans, had all his stuff including a lot of "supplement" stuff by other writers.

How big of Tolkien fans were they? My girlfriend's name was Arwen.

This is so full of win.

I'm sorry to say that, while I always just knew that I would enjoy The Lord Of the Rings, I did not get around to beginning the books until very recently. I told myself that I would not watch The Hobbit film in December before having read the books, like I did with TLotR so I read and loved it. After that, I asked for the hardback editions illustrated by Alan Lee for Christmas.

Since then I've really savoured the experience of reading the books for the first time by reading them aloud with a friend from my server on Skype. It's not the first time my friend has read the books but that does not matter to me, we are both loving the experience; reading aloud means that we naturally take it slowly. We're currently on the second part of The Two Towers. I have always somewhat kicked myself for not reading them sooner until very recently when I realised that having played the game has given me a lot more enjoyment in a way. My friend and I had just read the chapters where the ents go to war on Isengard and when Gandalf confronts Saruman in the tower of Orthanc when my kinship took our first steps at tackling the raid. It has given my in game experiences richer, in a way

I am an English teacher and am reading The Hobbit with my Year 6 class at the moment. We just read the part with Bert, Tom and Bill and they giggled like mad. I am loving every moment and I hope at least some of them develop a love of Tolkien too.

I was about 14-15, only learning how to roleplay over the internet. I knew nothing about the Tolkien universe and someone told me that the character I was roleplaying with was supposed to rather evil there. So it was all rather awkward.

Later on in 2001, the movies started showing up. I remembered the author's name when that happened and it crossed my mind to ask Lord of the Rings book as a Christmas gift. I got it, and I read it about the same time when the movies came out (becoming very conscious about the differences between the book and it's adaptations). I ended up loving both the book and the movie, and I got entirely sucked in the world. I proceeded to nearly all other readable Tolkien material there is, and I haven't stopped reading yet.

Originally Posted by Lekkric

My first time was in my girlfriend's basement while her parents were out. I was 16.

Yes I'm talking about LOTR, what were you thinking? Her parents were huge readers and I basically used their basement as a library. They were massive Tolkien fans, had all his stuff including a lot of "supplement" stuff by other writers.

How big of Tolkien fans were they? My girlfriend's name was Arwen.

This is one of the coolest things ever.

Like a lot of people, I was in middle school, 7th grade to be precise. I believe it was when Return of the King was about to be released on DVD and one of my friends wanted me to watch the movies. Being an avid reader, I refused to see the movies 'til I read the books, so I read LotR and the Hobbit within a couple weeks so I could see all three movies upon release of RotK. Being fascinated with the books, I picked up the Silmarillion as soon as I could, and did a book report on it the next year. Probably bored my teacher to death, but what can I say. To this day, eight years later, the Silmarillion is probably my favorite book, beating out LotR, which would be in second.

I think I first read The Hobbit in first or second grade (so I would have been somewhere between six and eight), though I don't remember if I watched the animated film beforehand or afterward. It was another couple years before I was up to tackling the Trilogy (at which point I re-read The Hobbit first for a refresher course - I also remember having to haul out my dictionary frequently to look up words like "habergeon" and "chalcedony"), and I've only now at twenty-two finished The Silmarillion. I really should go back and read everything again with the understanding I have now.