when i was a kid i was sick and had to stay in bed for a week, my mum went to the library and brought me a pile of books to read, i always loved books and reading and this is a very early memory of one of the books that first bewitched me. i was about six or seven and the book was, the hobbit, the original version with the colour plates.
i don't know, i escaped into that book, it was the first time i think a book just opened up and swallowed me up, as i recall.
the strange characters at the beginning all invading poor bilbo's home, the mysterious wise gandalf, it was so funny and quaint and these songs they sung, landscapes just branched from this book, trees were alive, everything had conciousness and most of all it was joyous and funny, but then to gradually to really notice the serious side of the story kicks in, and suddenly bilbo is fighting trolls who are arguing about how to cook dwarfs and there's that terrifying element that creeps in of a mysterious dark force operating somewhere in the world.
i loved the book, i read all of them but stopped at the simirillion, i think i'd done my tolkien dash by then.
i did see the lord of the rings trilogy by peter jackson and i liked them a lot but i always felt the story had jumped ahead of itself and should have started with the hobbit. 
jackson has just released the hobbit, it got really bad reviews  the media said it was to long, to lingering and slow. australian reviews are always out of whack, they seem to follow some political agenda, if the film don't meet the reviewers memetic value then it's trashed. batman rises is a classic case, but i have always found australian reviewers to be way of the mark and when they trash something i usually goo and see it. the film transposition of the hobbit is nothing short of brilliant, i loved it, i absolutely loved this film, for it met all my expectations of how tolkien should be filmed. don't take my word for it, go see it in 3d and make your own mind up, i am so looking forwards to the next in the series because it appears jackson is filming the novel as a trilogy, which is fine by me, the book the hobbit was in three parts originally.