The Hobbit: A Fan Fights Back

Sometimes, in furtherance of the greater good, we have to make personal sacrifices. Here's mine. I'm outing myself, today, as a Tolkien nerd; not just a fan (fans are 10-a-penny) but an honest-to-goodness full-on geek. The Lord of the Rings is my foundation text: my child-of-the-60s father read it to me when I was five (and to each of my three siblings thereafter); the only picture I have of myself at that age shows me in my bedroom with a map of Middle Earth on the wall in the background. I've read LOtR and The Hobbit more times than I can count, and have been known to while away the hours by testing my knowledge of the great man's oeuvre via Tolkien quizzes on Sporcle. I just took the one on characters by quotation, and got all the answers right. In half the allotted time.