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Audio CD Description "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." The hobbit-hole in question belongs to one Bilbo Baggins, an upstanding member of a "little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves." He is, like most of his kind, well off, well fed, and best pleased when sitting by his own fire with a pipe, a glass of good beer, and a meal to look forward to. Certainly this particular hobbit is the last person one would expect to see set off on a hazardous journey; indeed, when Gandalf the Grey stops by one morning, "looking for someone to share in an adventure," Baggins fervently wishes the wizard elsewhere. No such luck, however; soon 13 fortune-seeking dwarves have arrived on the hobbit's doorstep in search of a burglar, and before he can even grab his hat or an umbrella, Bilbo Baggins is swept out his door and into a dangerous adventure. The dwarves' goal is to return to their ancestral home in the Lonely Mountains and reclaim a stolen fortune from the dragon Smaug. Along the way, they and their reluctant companion meet giant spiders, hostile elves, ravening wolves--and, most perilous of all, a subterranean creature named Gollum from whom Bilbo wins a magical ring in a riddling contest. It is from this life-or-death game in the dark that J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, would eventually spring. Though The Hobbit is lighter in tone than the trilogy that follows, it has, like Bilbo Baggins himself, unexpected iron at its core. Don't be fooled by its fairy-tale demeanor; this is very much a story for adults, though older children will enjoy it, too. By the time Bilbo returns to his comfortable hobbit-hole, he is a different person altogether, well primed for the bigger adventures to come--and so is the reader. --Alix Wilber

Customer Reviews The Hobbit!The Best Book I have ever read! The Hobbit is completely my favourite book of all time. When I was 6 I listened to the tape and since then I have probably read the book 583 times. It has a superp story line which none absoulutely none of the several 100 other books I have read since can compare with. Okay Artemis Fowl was pretty good, well actually very good and so were the Harry Potter books but what other books can claim they have. A great storyline, Wizards, a hero who dosen't want to be one, Elves, Dragons and a richly satisfying ending? If there is a book I would really like to hear about it. The hero is the loveable character called Bilbo Baggins. He is of course a hobbit. As i'm sure pretty much every one knows what a hobbit is but for the benefit of the people who do not the foggiest idea what a hobbit is I will type the books explaination . If you have read the book don't bother reading this explanation if you don't wan't to. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you or me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow natural leathery soles and thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long clever brown fingers, good- natured faces, and a laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it). Many people say they prefer the hobbit to the Lord Of The Rings for two simple reasons. 1) It is easier to read and a lot less complicated. 2) It has a better story line. The hobbit is absoulutely fantastic! Any adults who haven't read this book need to read it or deserve to be PUNISHED! As for the people who rate this book below 5 stars they probably didn't read this book well enough or haven't read it at all. In conclusion !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!BUY THIS BOOK NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even better than LOTR Many fans of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings will tell you something like, "The Hobbit tells you some stuff you'll need to know when reading LOTR, but it really plays second fiddle to the ULTIMATE fantasy that LOTR is." In my opinion, this simply isn't true. While LOTR focuses on a grand and epic battle encompassing Middle Earth in its entirety, The Hobbit is a more romantic tale - focusing on a single quest and taking its time to storytell. Its simple "there and back again" feel and lighter mood make it one of my favorite novels. The finding of THE RING which started it all! `The Hobbit' by J. R. R. Tolkien is often described as the prequel to the much longer `Lord of the Rings'. I often thought that designation simply does not do justice to the importance of this little `children's' book. I have an almost reverential respect for the novel, having bought my first copy of this work on a cold February day in 1965 in the Lehigh University bookstore. I began reading it on the bus on the way home from my college classes at about 1:00 PM, and simply could not put it down. I finished reading it at about 8:30 that evening. The experience is not unlike Dorothy's opening the door of her Kansas house to step out onto the grass of Oz. I am totally unsurprised by a statement that says that the entire first page of `The Hobbit' has been reproduced in `Bartlett's Familiar Quotations'. There are few more magical or evocative openings to novels I have read in my whole life. I can appreciate that there are adult readers such as my Hemingway loving uncle who simply `don't get it'. I am often driven to the point of dispair when I can't interest young readers or listeners in `The Hobbit'. Like `Winnie the Pooh' and `Alice in Wonderland', I really think these are books designed much more to bring back memories of childhood in adults than to engage young readers. And oh how much I enjoy reading `The Hobbit' aloud! `The Hobbit' shares many similarities with `Alice in Wonderland' in that both authors were distinguished Oxford dons who created the works out of stories they made up for young listeners. The differences are as interesting as the similarities. While Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was a logician, Tolkien was a philologist. So, while both, in a sense, studied language, the differences in their avocations are evident in their text. Dodgson's works are full of logical curiosities and Tolkien's works are full of linguistic inventions, going so far as to create parts of at least three different languages to put into the mouths of his `Hobbit' and `Lord of the Rings' characters. But Tolkien went much further than simply creating languages. Even Carroll dabbled in creating words (see the poem `Jabberwocky'). Tolkien created whole histories of a huge continent ruled by demiurges very similar to the Olympian gods and populated by at least three races of immortal elves, seven clans of dwarves, dragons, trolls, giant spiders, goblins, shapeshifting men, giant eagles, intelligent wolves, and some horrors too unspeakable to bring up here, as they do not appear in `The Hobbit'. This history was probably not committed to paper as Tolkien was writing `The Hobbit', but it was certainly in the back of his mind. And, it is this sense of great depth to Middle Earth's history that gives one great added pleasure in reading this book. For the three adults who don't know the story of `The Hobbit', it is the tale of a band thirteen homeless dwarves lead by a former king of their clan, Thorin Oakenshield who wishes to reclaim his home and treasure from a rather large and rather cunning dragon named Smaug. Thorin meets up with the wizard, `Gandalf the Gray' and over a pint of ale, hatch the scheme of hiring a thief and raiding their treasure from right under the dragon's nose. The thief who Gandalf selects is a most unlikely adventurer, a hobbit who is even more set in his comfortable ways than is usual for these very comfortable rural folk. But hobbits happen to have a few attributes that make them especially good at burglary. They are quiet in the extreme when sneaking up on something and they are exceptionally good with slings and hurling projectiles by hand. I will not tell much more of the plot, as the unfolding of the story is by far one of the greatest pleasures. This is in no way a character study; it's all about landing in trouble and getting out of it by the skin of their teeth. Aside from banishing a major league dragon from their cozy mines, the main point of the story is the finding of a magical golden ring, which is the jumping off point of `Lord of the Rings'. There is another less obvious connection between `The Hobbit' and `The Lord of the Rings'. Gandalf's support of Thorin's adventure is not done out of the goodness of his heart, it is done to remove a major calamity from the playing field before Sauron, the ultimate heavy in `The Lord of the Rings', can make use of Smaug. Even though dragons seem to be a pretty independent lot, there is no questions that Sauron could not bend even Smaug to his will, especially if Sauron recovered the `One Ring'. One thing which always disappointed me about the great historical back story behind `The Hobbit' and `The Lord of the Rings' is that the origin and history of the wizards in Middle Earth is never fully spelled out. The history of the elves is done in great detail, but little is directly told of Gandalf, Saruman, and the other three wizards. The only thing of which I can be sure is that unlike Beorn, the eagles, and humans, they are not native to Middle Earth. There is but a single reference to a race of magicians in `The Silmarillion', but neither the name Gandalf or Mithrandir appears anywhere in this last of Tolkien's major works. Since having read `The Hobbit' and `The Lord of the Rings', I have searched in vain for tales of equal quality and there are none. Arthurian legends come close and next to Gandalf, Merlin is easily my favorite fictional character, but Tolkien seems to have hit a mother lode of wonder and lore was before and remains hidden to other writers.