1+1+1 for 365, day 22: Away from the shire and back again

TODAY'S QUOTE:

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."

- J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again)

TODAY'S BOOK:

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, to give the book its full title, Tolkien's second most famous work and first published on 21 September in 1937 - and this date is the reason why I chose it for today's post.

I was given my copy of  by a poetic boyfriend a long time ago.  He thought (quite rightly) that my education would not be complete without having read Tolkien and he said best to start with The Hobbit before I get round to The Lord of the Rings.  I was in a phase where I read completely different things and at first I could not relate to its fantasy world. But the boyfriend patiently introduced me to the magic of hobbits and many other things relating to Tolkien. Maybe the many cups of coffee and glasses of sherry helped, but in order to ensure that I would actually read the book, my romantic suitor stopped reading from poetry books for me for a while, and proceeded to read from it out loud while holding my hand during long cold winter's evenings in my small flat.