[NancyBrooke]

I think this is an interesting question and I'll be interested to know the answer. Of course, now I feel old(est!) [/i]

[Robbie]

For those that are concerned, polls are mostly anonymous.

Whilst we can find out who voted (by looking at raw data), we cannot find out who voted for what. So feel free to vote as we won't know what you go for, but we would like to know the demographics of who uses the site!

[sindohte]

Nancy,

Take it from someone who has had more than one 27th birthday you are only as old as you feel. And my mental age fluctuates between being not quite old enough to drink alcohol and old enough to collect Social Security It all depends on my mood and my aches and pains for the day.

It seems that at the moment the poll results are skewed towards the 25-35 age range. Which raises another question -- when did everyone first read the Hobbit and LOTR? Although I have been an avid reader of all types of books - including the fantasy genre, I am almost embarassed to say that I never read Tolkien's work until last year. Well I've made up for it in spades. Certain other people who shall remain nameless know about my burgeoning collection of books related to all things Tolkien.

So what about everyone else? Are you reading Tolkien for the first time or are you a fan from way back?

[Tripsoverhercats]

For me, Tolkien was a household book, my parents read it back in the 60's and loved his books dearly. (Mother even has a stamp with "Frodo Lives" on it that she keeps in her desk, and the stamp is older than me.)

So while LotR was always accessable, I really didn't pay to much attention to it, it was more my parents thing than mine. I had my own copies, but they mostly sat on the shelf. I was more into Star Wars and Pern novels. At one point I tried to watch the cartoon versions any turned it off in disgust.

Then the trailer spilled out on the big screen, and I knew that this was going to be huge. My copy of LotR came down off the shelf and I re-read it over one weekend. After seeing the first movie, I began to interact with online chat groups, and that has slowly led me down the road until I ended up here.

So even though I grew up with the books, it was the movies that really grabbed my interest.

[dolarabee]

[JennnLee]

Ummm.... well, I'd never read the books. I tried, I tried like crazy, but Tolkien's language and method of storytelling doesn't do it for me. I've started The Hobbit no less than five times and have never finished it. Meanwhile, my husband is one of those people that has two or three copies of the trilogy, and I got him that box set for Christmas one year that's made up of seven volumes. So when the movie was announced, he bet me in early 2001 that I couldn't get through FotR before the movie came out in December. It was tough going when I got to Tom Bombadil, and he was hoping that that bit would make me give up. But I won; never bet me when books are involved. I enjoyed the story, but not the writing, if that makes sense. I can appreciate his love for language, but I found myself hungering for more insight into the characters and other such development.

When Two Towers came out, I decided to read that book too, as every part I really enjoyed Morgan told me came from the book. I'm about halfway through it, and I'll finish it at some point. Of course, that book contains my favorite line in all of literature: "Aragorn and Legolas went now with Eomer in the van." The mental picture of an Aerostar bouncing across the Riddermark had me giggling for days. Still does, with poor Legolas trying to get that damn side door to slide closed. Because you know that Aragorn called shotgun.

Pathetic, ain't it? And yet I have the audacity to write LotR fanfic. This is why my stuff is more movieverse.

[NancyBrooke]

I first read the Hobbit in third grade so, let's say, thirty years ago! After reading the Chronicles of Narnia I was hungry for more fantasy. The Trilogy soon followed and I've read them many times since. Sometimes I think I still have a shallow/childlike understanding of them, however; I plan to read them again once ROTK comes out and see what's what.

[Roisin]

[Kaltia]

I'm sixteen over here. I was what you might call a "demi-fangirl"; I read Lord of the Rings when I was nine and didn't really understand it-thus being slightly terrified of the wordiness of them- and was only encouraged to read them again after the first movie was released. This time, they actually made sense ^^.

To let you know just how confusing I found the books, I thought the Fellowship of the Ring *ended* at Rivendell