A fun, amazingly entertaining read that, despite it's "over the shoulder of every character" point of view, drew me in without reservation and made me a gleeful participant in young Bilbo Baggins's quite reluctant adventure with the 13 dwarves.
The use of magical items, the "just in time-ness" of the Great Gandalf the Grey, and the constant danger that was faced made it a very compelling story, though I felt, with my version at least, that some things were omitted for sake of keeping the story short for those who would see the movie. I remember seeing The Hobbit on a shelf at a book store, it's volume daunting me from starting it.
A compact 200 something pages, this version of The Hobbit was quick to digest, and flowed quite easily into The Fellowship of the Ring which I plan to devour as soon as free time becomes available. ( )

The Hobbit was the first fantasy book I had ever read, I was 31 years old. From this point on I read fantasies whenever I could find them...they weren't as easy to find back then. The Hobbit was aimed for children, but it was one of those books I couldn't put down...even read it a second time to see if I really liked as much as I thought. It was. A simple story, with unusual, complicated characters, put into dangerous situations...and no sex. When I put the book down, a few days later my 9-year-old son picked it up and read it in a few days. He has never stopped liking the fantasy genre, and he's now 50.

If you want to read The Lord of the Rings (LOR), I do suggest you read this book first. It will really help to set up the relationship between Gollum and Bilbo Baggins, the Hero of The Hobbit. As others said, this book is not as intense as LOR. ( )

I read far and wide across all genres but my first and truest love has always been fantasy. A good fantasy story takes you on an adventure. There's often a quest, magic, undiscovered abilities, friends, enemies and action - all of this makes a great fantasy story.

The Hobbit has all that and more. It is the epitome of the perfect fantasy tale. The kind you want to sit around a campfire and hear told with dramatic exaggeration. It has a dragon and dwarves, a wizard and one lone hobbit who turns out to be the bravest of them all.

Fantasy is not for everyone, but most importantly there's levels to it. This is a classic fantasy with elements of high fantasy. High fantasy has excessive world building - maps, extra tales, extensive histories of people and places - not all of it may be included but a lot of it is. The most obvious example is of course, The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit is a classic fantasy with elements of high fantasy - Tolkien has created the world building but much of it doesn't come into play in this book. The Hobbit is just a taste of the world retold as one would a folk or fairy tale.

That said, if you don't like The Hobbit, don't even bother with Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings is just a long drawn out, denser version. If you don't like the base elements of The Hobbit, you're going to hate Lord of the Rings. My mum definitely did.

I love Bilbo. His zest for life and adventure is hilarious - mainly because he has it but it's tinged with a lot of reluctance. To be fair, he also gets thrown into a deep end - he has no idea how or when or why this adventure came to be until he's being kicked out of his house without his pocket-handkerchief. He really comes into his own though throughout, finding his bravery and nerve and that he is capable of a lot more than he gives himself credit for. Although I do feel sorry for him, he takes a hell of a lot of hits to the head.

And of course we get the first look at Gollum and find how Bilbo comes to possess the ring. I like the dwarves but it would be nicer if they were truer friends - they have a bad tendency to hesitate or leave Bilbo to his own devices much too often. I loved Bard and I loved how Bilbo resolves the tensions at the end. The dragon seeks revenge on the Lake-Men for helping the dwarves and the hobbit with their supplies. Bard manages to kill the dragon with an arrow but many are dead and they want justice for the deaths they have suffered. Thorin (the King of the Mountains) refuses to share the treasure but he does prize the Arkenstone of Thrain above all. Bilbo finds it and hands it off to the Elves and the Lake-Men to bargain with when.

5 stars. It's a classic. ( )

I tried. In fact, I found it very entertaining at first. But then I got bored. I decided I just didn't want to force myself to keep reading. ( )

It only took me thirty years to read this. LOL.

Now I can fully understand why this book is so beloved by all ages. This book was written by a master storyteller and has something for just about everyone.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and just sad it took me so long to do so. Highly looking forward to reading more of Tolkien’s work. ( )