My father has been a lotr obsesser for quite a few many years, I remember him hunting around second hand book stores trying to find a copy of the hobbit, back when lotr wasnt insanley popular. Probably about 15 years ago now (I'm 20 btw)

Alot of you might be too young to remember a time where lotr wasnt a major motion picture, or in the making to be a major motion picture.

I know that a few of you had read the books before the movies and had loved it for a few years.

I find it strange, I remember having to search through at least 50 second hand book stores to find a copy of the hobbit, but since the movie was released, theres millions of copies everywhere. Even the unfinished tales are as easy as pie to find now.

I remember when lotr was mentioned, people went 'huh?' Gollum wasnt used as a derogatory word in general conversation and short people wern't described as 'hobbits'


Do you remember things from before the movies were released that have drastically changed now? (apart from your bedroom poster collection)

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We're one world, one people weather we like it or not.. we can pretend we're divided into races and countries.. But the reality is that it is one world and it is one people.

Well, thankfully, I do remember life before the Second Craze. What can I say? It was... different.

I remember my mom buying a set of three very horrible paperbacks of LotR. I don't know who published them, but I have a feeling it wasn't a "genuine" one, on account of the mistakes they contained. (Ugluk says to an Orc "Runt" instead of the proper "Run", for example.)
They also, being in the good ol' paperback fiction section, had these strange covers that looked like, well... paperback fiction. Legolas and Gimli, on the cover of TTT were the worst, I thought. Legolas looked exactly like one of the muscle-men with the long flowing hair, huge dimple on the chin, a shadow of facial hair, and was looking down at Gimli with an expression that I can't recall without cringing.
The Aragorn on the cover of RotK was pretty much the same, except with a serving bowl with donkey ears turned upside-down on top of his head.

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But at 8, I didn't really care much about that, I was just raised to love literature, and The Hobbit having been read aloud so many times, picking up LotR was a natural.

It was quite fun, I think my family read LotR out loud together, each taking turns at it, about twice.

I, being a professional daydreamer, began making stories up in my head about it that would probably count in the pre-Mary-Sue stages... you know, you're still too young to have an actual "romantic" daydream, so you do the big brother/little sister-esque relationship.
The character I did that with the most was Strider... So I guess you could say that my first crush ever was on the book Aragorn!

But I know what you mean, Jo, about people not knowing about LotR. I had quite a few conversations with some knuckleheads, trying to convince them that this was the greatest book ever... sigh. An 8-year-old isn't likely to convince a grownup who got turned away from LotR by some of the wackos who were all over it in the 60s.



Those days sure were different!

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Doll base

i remember my mother buying me the hobbit for christmass.i loved it and badgered her to get LOTr for me.i can still remember reading the two towers all one sunny afternoon and sitting back and thinking that this was one of the best days ever.when the animated movie came out a friend of mine at high school went to see it and said it was not worth watching.the radio adaption on bbc was awsome.ian holme played frodo.

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proud to be a pipe smoker like JJRT

Sadly I haven't read the books before the movies came out. I really wish I had known about LotR earlier. But since nobody around me was interested in it and nobody of them has ever read it I didn't know about it..
I think it's kinda sad that the movies made LotR so famous though, because each day I sit in the bus going to school I can hear little boys talking about LotR who just know the computer games and the movies and a couple of parodies, but don't have a clue of anything actually. And there are so many people in my school who made fun out of LotR because of the computer games or little plastic figures of the characters which didn't look like the characters at all..

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well,when they grow older some may read the books.maybe everybody should buy some second hand copies and give them to people.

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proud to be a pipe smoker like JJRT

^
we don't have second hand shops here But I always wanna lend my copies to my friends/my family, but they don't wanna read it..

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awww,there is loads of second hand shops here.

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proud to be a pipe smoker like JJRT

We have one second hand books store in town. You can tell when someones bought the lotr books, read them once then got rid of them. so many times i find the lore books with images from the film on the covers, it loks like they were bough because of the pictures of the movie and disposed of when it was discovered it was different from the movie.

Those poor books.

^_^ My version is a 1970's edition, is really retro with a green and orange cover

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We're one world, one people weather we like it or not.. we can pretend we're divided into races and countries.. But the reality is that it is one world and it is one people.

unfortunatly there is a lot of stupid people around.

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proud to be a pipe smoker like JJRT

oh yes I also have some experiences with them. They're so annoying and also make the Ringers look bad in some way..

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ringers?is that the name for tolkien fans?

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proud to be a pipe smoker like JJRT

yes (at least that's the name I always use..)

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it has a certain meaning in britain which has nothing to do with LOTR!

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proud to be a pipe smoker like JJRT

The first memory I have of LotR before the movies came out was when my dad found his old copy of The Hobbit up in the attic. I'd always been a lover of fantasy and so I had Mum and Dad take turns reading it to me. I fell in love with the book and when we finished I couldn't wait to read more.

I checked at our school library and a public one close by, but they didn't carry any of the LotR Trilogy. *gashp* It was almost like it didn't exist at all. I remember asking friends if they'd read the trilogy [so that maybe I could borrow their copy] but they just looked at me and said "huh?".

So, in short, a lot of people didn't really know much about LotR till the movie's came out. Immediately, when I walked into a library or book store I noticed the many, many different kinds of LotR books ranging from the ones with movie images on the cover to others with Alan Lee's original drawings.

Movie's tend to boost the publicity and popularity of the book they are based on, in most cases. Take Harry Potter and Narnia for example...

I remember a few things. I mean my mom read me the books, including The Hobbit, as bedtime stories when I was a kid but I didn't really understand them untill I saw the movies. And it had been such a long time since I read the books when I saw the movies I barely remembered anything beyond the names of certain characters. I used to love that line when I was a kid, I thought it was hilarious lol. I know that was random but that line always brings up fond memories lol.

My mom has actually been a LOTR fan for a really long time, she has a calender of LOTR from 1979 and we have copies of LOTR and the Silmarillion from the 70's also and I think our copy of The Hobbit is from the 80's. I love that copy of The Hobbit, it has all of these great pictures in it. Ahh all this reminissing makes me want to go read The Hobbit again.

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"There's an ocean between.....where I am and where I want to be"

i rememeber the pic of smaug on the cover when i got it for christmass.my mother loved LOTR,so she got me the hobbit as soon as i was old enough to read it.tolkiens art was wonderfull as well as the story.i sat down that christmass evening and read all of it.

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