About this title: Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to take part in an adventure from which he may never return.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780345339683ISBN:0345339681
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Book is in very good condition-ONLY flaw is minimal edgewear. Pgs are tight. SHIPS V FAST! ! Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 320 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780345339683ISBN:0345339681
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 320 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780345339683ISBN:0345339681
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 320 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780345339683ISBN:0345339681
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 320 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780345339683ISBN:0345339681
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 320 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780345339683ISBN:0345339681
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Very light edge and corner wear. No marks. Tight binding. Very light spine tilt. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 320 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780345339683ISBN:0345339681
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Some edge and corner wear. No marks. Tight binding. A couple dings and light wear on surface of book. Lightly tanning pages. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 320 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780345339683ISBN:0345339681
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 320 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. Spine is smooth. Covers show some wear at the edges and corners. Good reading copy. Binding is Mass Market Paperback. Pages tanning. Used books may have price stickers. Most orders ship on the next business day. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780345339683ISBN:0345339681
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 320 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 1986-07-12
ISBN-13:9780345339683ISBN:0345339681
Description: USED: Good. 42nd printing of revised edition with black background cover illustration. unmarked pages, no spine creases, cover has corner creases and light age tanning on inside covers. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780345339683ISBN:0345339681
Description: Good. No Jacket. Good. No DJ Issued Good. No dust jacket as issued. Cover has mild corner wear and a few spine crease lines. Mark on first page only. No other faults. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 320 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
"The Hobbit is an incredible book filled with fantasy creatures and a wonderful adventure. In this book a hobbit by the name of Bilbo Baggins embarks on an adventure that changes his life. He starts out as a plain little hobbit who was never interested in adventure because hobbits frown upon leaving the Shire and going beyond The Water. Well the adventurous side in him comes out, oh yes he has an adventurous side, when a group of dwarves and Gandalf the wizard come to his hobbit hole requesting that he comes with them as a Burglar. Their treasure and mountain had been stolen years earlier by the terrible dragon Smaug. So when Bilbo decides to go they head east towards the mountain. During this journey they run into all sorts of creatures like trolls and obviously a dragon. They also run into good creatures though like the elves of rivendel. Overall this book is very enthralling and will hold in fantasy lover's attention."
"a couple of months ago i bought the hobbit together with the lord of the rings, thinking that you just have to read them even though i didn't like the movies at all. checking the wikipedia i found that the hobbit was chronologically the earliest of them both in when it has been written and when it is settled in tolkien's universe. so i decided to start with it.
and how surprised i was! really it was a beautiful, catching story, leaving me not to be able to put it down on the last two hundred pages. i was amazed to see how the hobbit getting more and more mature over his adventures; the hobbit in the end was surely not the same hobbit of the beginning; but sure you will love them both. the world seemed to be so real that i was in no doubt that all this really happened, though sometimes the way that the hobbit got out of his troubles seemed quite impossible, possible though due to tolkien's convincing way of telling.
the adventures where real adventures! they were so adventuresome that i would disagree with people saying it's a story for little children; there was way to many characters getting killed for that it was a children's story, albeit the light-hearted way of telling and the mixture of adventure and comfort."
"I picked this book up with the intention to read only a few chapters before another book I ordered from the library had arrived. The narrative moves so quickly, though, that I was half-way through in no time and decided to finish it.
Like many people, I first read this book when I was very young, and re-reading it, I more fully appreciate what a great children's story it is. It is amazing how much Tolkien fits into a mere 300 pages (his story-telling is more restrained than his somewhat rambling epic, Lord of the Rings), yet there are a few passages that left me wondering if he maybe could have benefited from a more fastidious editor. Why, for example, does he spend almost the same number of pages detailing how Bilbo and the Dwarves hike from one part of a mountain to another as he does describing the climatic battle scene?
Of course, it is Tolkien's scrupulous love of detail that allowed him to construct the world of Middle Earth so convincingly, and the Hobbit remains the best introduction to Tolkien's unrivaled talent for fantasy world-making."
"Some books are almost impossible to review. If a book is bad, how easily can we dwell on its flaws! But if the book is good, how do you give any recommendation that is equal the book? Unless you are an author of equal worth to the one whose work you review, what powers of prose and observation are you likely to have to fitly adorn the work?
'The Hobbit' is at one level simply a charming adventure story, perhaps one of the most charming and most adventurous ever told. There, see how simple that was? If you haven't read it, you should, because it is quite enjoyable. At some level, there is little more to say. Enjoy the story as the simple entertainment it was meant to be. Read it to your children and luxuriate in the excitement and joy that shines from their faces. That's enough.
But if it was only simple entertainment, I do not think that it would be anything more than just a good book. Instead, this simple children's story resonates and fascinates. It teases and hints at something larger and grander, and it instructs and lectures as from one of the most subtle intellects without ever feeling like it has instructing, lecturing or being condescending.
At it's heart, the complaint I opened the review with is just a variation on one of the many nuanced observations Tolkien makes in 'The Hobbit' when he complains that a story of a good time is always too quickly told, but a story of evil times often requires a great many words to cover the events thereof. How often has that idea fascinated me?
Consider also how the story opens, with Bilbo's breezy unreflective manners which are polite in form but not in spirit, and Gandalf's continual meditation on the meaning of 'Good morning.' How much insight is concealed within Gandalf's gentle humor! How often do we find ourselves, like Bilbo, saying something we don't really mean and using words to mean something very unlike their plain meaning! How often do we find ourselves saying, "I don't mean to be rude, but...", when in fact we mean, "I very much mean to be rude, and here it comes!" If we did not mean to be rude, surely we wouldn't say what we say. Instead we mean, "I'm going to be rude but I don't want you to think I'm someone who is normally rude...", or "I'm going to put myself forward, but I don't want you to think of me who is normally someone so arrogant...", or even, "I'm going to be rude, but I don't want to think of myself as someone who is rude, so I'm going to pretend I'm not being rude..."
I think that is what makes this more than just a good book, but a great one. Tolkien is able to gently skewer us for our all too human failings, and he does so without adopting any of the cynicism or self-loathing so common with those that seek out to skewer humanity for its so evident failings.
We fantasize about heroes which are strong and comely of form, and we have for as long as we've had recorded literature. Our comic books are filled with those neo-pagan mythic heroes whose exaggerated human virtues always amounts to, whatever else may be true of them, 'beats people up good'. These modern Ajaxs, Helens and Achilles dominate the box office, and I would imagine dominate our internal most private fantasy lives as well. Oh sure, the superhero of our fantasy might have superhuman ethics to go along with his superhuman ability to kick butt, attract the opposite sex, and enforce their will upon others, but it is always attached to and ultimately secondary to our fantasy of power and virility. How different is Tolkien's protagonist from Heracles, Lancelot, Beowulf, or Batman - short, small, mundane, and weak. Of all the principal characters of the story, he possesses probably the least of that quintessential heroic attribute - martial prowess.
And yet, he is not actually merely an 'average Joe'. Bilbo is just as much an exaggerated idealized hero as Heracles, it's just that those attributes in which Bilbo is almost transcendently inhuman isn't the sort of attributes we normally fantasize about having ourselves. Bilbo is gentle. He is simple. He is humble. Power and wealth have little attraction for him. He is kind. He takes less than his share, and that that he takes he gives away. He is a peacemaker. Though wrongly imprisoned, he bears no grudge and desires no vengeance for the wrongs done to him. Rather he apologizes for stealing food, and offers to repay in recompense far more than he took. Though mistreated, he harbors no enmity. He never puts himself forward, but he never shirks when others do.
How often do we fantasize about being this different sort of hero, and yet how much better we would be if we did? How much better off would we be if we, like Thorin could declare in our hearts, "There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." How often is it that we hunger after all the wrong things? What profit would we really have if we had in great measure the power to 'beat people up good'? What real use could we put it too? How much better off would we be individually and as a people if we most desired to be graced with Bilbo's virtues, rather than Achilles speed, strength, and skill with arms? How much less mature does this mere children's book of a well lit-world cause our darker fantasies to seem?
Now, I admit I am biased in my review. I read this book 36 times before the age of 16. I broke the spines of three copies of it with continual reading. Yet in my defense I will say that I'm considered only a moderate fan of the book by many. I've known several devotees of the book who, like the protagonist of Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451', can recite whole chapters from memory - ensuring that this would be one of the few books that would survive the sudden destruction of all the world's technology if only the world's story teller's survived. If you are inclined to think no book can be that good, and that my review overhypes it, so much the better. Go in with low expectations so as to be certain that they will be met or exceeded. Forget all I have said save that, "If you haven't read it, you should, because it is quite enjoyable.""
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