How were you introduced to Tolkien?

[Morthoron]

Oddly enough, I learned about Tolkien through his obituary. The Detroit Free Press ran the obit (actually a half page article, which I still have), and there was a photo of this jolly, old professorial type with pipe, and down the page were pictures of a hobbit, a wizard and a dragon (which of course I learned were Bilbo, Gandalf and Smaug).

Intrigued, I borrowed a copy of the Hobbit from the grade school library, and now, three plus decades later, I still keep the Tolkien Estate subsidized through annual purchases of their product (which has grown quite voluminous).

[Eönwë]

When I was around 7/8 I read The Hobbit, but it was only after the last film came out (maybe half a year) that I read LOTR. Soon after I read Tales from the Perilous Realm (but didn't get it), just because I liked Tom Bombadil so much. Then I read the Silm a few years later, which lead to me reading some of the others.

Yes, I'm a first generation Tolkien-fan in my family.

[radagastly]

When I was about ten or eleven years old, I went into my older brother's room looking for a book to read (I did a lot more reading then than I do now and my brother had a huge collection of paperbacks for a teenager.) I came across three books by the same author with fascinating cover art derived from this Barbara Remington poster. I wondered what kind of story could possibly lie behind such imagry. I read The Lord of the Rings straight through, and immediately read it all again. I think it was some time later that I finally read The Hobbit . That was almost forty years ago, and Tolkien is still my favorite author.

[Groin Redbeard]

I was twelve years old when I saw a poster for The Fellowship of the Ring movie at Burger King. At first I thought it was another stupid Hollywood flick, but then my mom told me all about the great works of Tolkien. I immediatly wanted to see the movie, but there is a rule in my house where you have to read the book before you watch the movie. I finished the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy in two weeks, and then from there I read the hobbit. I only just noticed that he wrote the Silmarilion around a year ago.

[Aganzir]

Once upon a time there was a little girl whose name was Aganzir, and she had a dear friend called Thinlómien. Thinlómien was an avid Tolkien fan, and always looked at poor little Aganzir sceptically when she tried to recommend her a book she had found good.

One winter Thinlómien was reading the Lotr for the fourth time and didn't want to keep company to Aganzir and their other friends during the breaks. Aganzir came to say hi to her and read a few passages over her shoulder. It was about the Battle of Helm's Deep. She asked Thinlómien what those two towers are (it was written on the margin of the page), and what are orcs?

Aganzir had probably talked to her mother about the lovely Thinlómien who reads this Tolkien book, for the very same Christmas Aganzir's aunt gave her the Lord of the Rings. She read it in two weeks and started over almost immediately after finishing it. Then she read the Hobbit, the Silmarillion (which she didn't find difficult at all despite being only 12) and the Unfinished Tales, and even the Tolkien biography.
Only after reading Lotr and the Hobbit did she watch the movies.

Thinlómien was very proud of Aganzir. Now they could talk about Tolkien all the time, and eventually their other friends read the Lotr, too.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

43 years ago (almost 44, actually), when I was all of 11 and one of my brothers about 13, he started to spend all his time during Sunday Mass with his nose buried in what appeared to be a prayer book. One week, I found out that he was putting a fancy embossed plastic cover on other books, and closer inspection showed that he was reading LotR. Being the curious kind of kid I was, I wondered what he found so fascinating about it, since I had never heard of it, so I sat down and read it myself. I tried reading The Hobbit next, but I just couldn't get into it. I didn't manage to get through TH until I was 24 (when that same brother gave me one of the leather-bound editions for Christmas), but I've read LotR at least once a year ever since that first time. It's one of the few things that brother and I have in common, a love of Tolkien's works.

[Thinlómien]

What a cute story, Agan. Shall I tell another one?

Once upon a time there was a man called Nogrod. He had two daughters, Thinlómien and A Little Green. The older was foul and ugly, the younger was gentle and beautiful... Oops, wrong story. Ahem, yes, he had two daughters, called Thinlómien and A Little Green, but we shall call them Lommy and Greenie. The girls were young but both wise beyond their years and they had always loved great stories. One year, when they were five and three, or possibly six and four, Nogrod showed them a movie, Bakshi's Lord of the Rings. It left a lasting impression on the girls.

Not much later, Nogrod and his daughters started a great project. Nogrod took four books from the shelf and every night he sat with his daughters and read them stories; The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and The Unfinished Tales. The girls listened avidly, spellbound.

From that on, Tolkien's magical world could be seen everywhere - in their drawings, in their plays, in their talk. Especially the older one, Lommy, was totally enchanted by this mysterious but real world. She told about it to her friends and made them play Elves or Orcs with her. When she was seven or eight, she read The Lord of the Rings herself and the other books soon after. Then, if not before, she had entered Arda so deeply that there was no return.

[Groin Redbeard]

Great day in the morning, I didn't know Nogrod was your dad, Thinlomien! All I can say is that he's certainly done a wonderful job with two certain Tolkien scholars, I couldn't imagine reading the Lord of the Rings at age seven. You're what I call a Tolkien missionary, Thinlomien. My hat is off to both of you!

[MatthewM]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Once upon a time there was a man called Nogrod. He had two daughters, Thinlómien and A Little Green..

That explains how you both look alike!