LOTR Readalong - The Fellowship of the Ring: Beginning

I know, I know I am officially slacking on this post. It is now almost the middle of the month and time for the second post but here it is. Clare at The Literary Omnivore is hosting the readalong for this month and she has started it with a few questions:

1. When did you first hear of The Lord of the Rings?
2. Have you read The Fellowship of the Ring before?
3. What’s your plan of attack, now that we’re dealing with more “mature” literature?
4. Have you ever seen the movies? If so, do you think they’ll influence your reading? If not, well, why haven’t you seen them?

I don't remember when I first heard about LOTR but I know that I read The Hobbit in high school and that is my first memory of them. I tried to move on to The Fellowship of the Ring after that but I eventually became distracted and set it down....for 10 years. I have wanted to actually make it through the series for a while so I am so excited that I am finally going to do it.

I am keeping this on my nightstand and, like The Hobbit, it is the book that I read right before I shut my eyes. I think that is the only way I can control how much I read and draw it out for the month (ok, so I started it late and took it out of the bedroom for a few days but the plan is to put it back in there and stay on track for the rest of the month).

Back in my first year of college I watched the movie with some friends. Well, I started to watch the movie, it ended up being just something that was on in the background. Then I received The Two Towers as a gift and eventually The Return of the King came into my possession. The strange thing is that since I hadn't really seen the first movie or read the books I didn't want to watch them because I wouldn't know what was going on so I don't even know if those 2 DVDs have been opened.

I eventually watched most of the second and third movies when they were on one weekend and I was just having a lazy day. In between getting dressed and doing random things around the house I managed to watch understand most of the story and fall in love. I knew I would have to read the books before I went back and officially started watching the movies again so here I am. When the readalong is over I am buying The Fellowship of the Ring on blu-ray and watching them from start to finish. And I won't feel like a poser since I will finally have read, and I'm sure loved, the books.