52 Books in 52 Weeks, it's called. The challenge is simple: read a book every week for a year.
34. The hobbit, or There and back again.
Abe and I worked our way through this over a couple of months. It’s been about 6 or 7 years since I read it last, and it seemed much more adult this time, in contrast with last time, when it seemed much younger to me than the first time I read it. I had not remembered correctly who it was exactly that killed Smaug (it was Bard), nor did I remember about the Goblins returning for the Battle of the Five Armies. Essentially, it’s an appetizer for the coming main course: the pacing issues here are resolved in The Lord of the Rings — battles are given their rightful due in that expanded work. We will now set ourselves to the Rankin/Bass cartoon: “where there’s a whip, there’s a way.” Huzzah!
