There and Back Again (and Again and Again)

It’s just about time. As is the case every year, I simultaneously feel like it’s snuck up on me and that I’ve been awaiting it for months. I’m talking, of course, about my annual reading of The Lord of the Rings.

For those of you previously unaware of this annual tradition, which I’ve been doing for something like 13 years now, let me just take a moment to say: “Why yes, it would seem that I am extremely nerdy about this. Thank you for pointing that out, otherwise I never would have known.”

This year, as is the case every few years, I’m gearing up with a re-reading of The Hobbit. Given that we’re in the midst of a needlessly long-winded run of Hobbit films, it only seemed fitting to start there this time around. And, you know, you can never really have enough Tolkien at this time of year anyway.

I started reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time on the drive home from a camping trip at the end of summer and, as such, I’ve always associated the book with this time of year. For a few years I started my annual reading on Hobbit Day (September 22^nd, a day of significance in the LOTR universe) but the added wait time was just too much for me. Apparently I’m too eager a Tolkienophile to abide by someone else’s schedule.

So I started in on The Hobbit last night. I’ll keep myself from flooding the blog with Middle-Earth thoughts, but as a warning, I imagine that at least a few will slip through, like Bilbo through a goblin’s closing gate.