The Hobbit - book review

Some books are classics that you just *have* to read again once in a while, and for me, The Hobbit is one of those.

Of course, there is the hype now with the movies, but long before even the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out, I was already a fan of the Tolkien works.

Now, the deal with the movies versus the original work of Middle-Earth is that the Hobbit is a book of 330 something pages, pulled into a movie series of 9+ hours.  So things are added, spun out, and even completely pulled from imagination.

For example, the Battle of the Five Armies took nearly 5 pages, but will be 45 minutes long in the third instalment.  There is no Legolas in the book, nor only a mention of Radagast.  And the whole Dol Guldur exploit is only briefly mentioned in like the 5 last pages of the book and takes a whole alinea...

On the opposite side though, the book takes a very sweet and enjoyable `narrator` point of view in between the adventures, switching between the story being told versus the story being lived.  Though Smaug goes down a bit fast and unceremoniously in the book.

But if you have kids, or you love fantasy, this is a MUST READ book, and due to the style it is written in, you will be flying through it, yet enjoying it greatly.

Just make sure these days that you buy the `book` book, not the movie adaption...