Part 1: Intro

.. why am I doing a Lord of the rings/ Hobbit blog?    that’s easy. Because I love the Tolkien books.

As a young child I really struggled with my dyslexia and this had a massive impact on my ability to read, I had to read every line 3 or 4 times to make sure what I had read was correct. This sucked all the enjoyment out of reading as it would take me ages just to read 1 page. I love books and wanted to read so many but I would always get frustrated and give up. That was until my father bought me a copy of the lord of the rings. I was handed a decretive box with 4 huge leather bound tomes inside.

I sat down and began to read straight away and I was hooked, it didn’t matter how frustrating it was that each page took me ages to read each page, the words just enticed me to read on. It took me years to work my way through these books but what a journey it was. It took me about the same amount of time to read these books as it took Frodo and Sam to walk to Mount Doom. But once I had finished I went straight back to the Hobbit and started again.

I managed to get a VHS copy of the animated Lord of the rings film and watched it so many times the tape became scratchy and splotchy.

Then the most amazing thing happened…… Peter Jackson turned my favourite books into one of my favourite films.  I sat transfixed at the screen in the cinema, I couldn’t believe that Peter Jackson had managed to bring the Middle earth to life.

For the next couple of years it became a tradition to go to the cinema on Christmas eve to watch the next part of the trilogy.

Ever since then I have watched the trilogy at least twice a year “the extended versions!” and I still go back and re read the books every few years.

As you can tell Tolkien’s books hold a special place in my heart.