My 11-year-old Tolkiens.

Yes, I will admit that my interest in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy was inspired by the movie adaptation of the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring, back in 2001, with director Peter Jackson at the helm. Unlike my husband, a fantasy purist, who has read the series at a time when practically only a handful even knew that Tolkien existed, I merely rode the bandwagon. Nakikiuso. :P  But, since I have always been one to read the book first prior to seeing an adaptation, I knew I had to have the boxed set of the series.

The set includes The Hobbit, the prequel to the trilogy.

This boxed set was a gift from my cousin who's in the US. Yes, this is the movie tie-in edition, as you can see from the photos of Elijah Wood as “Frodo”, Viggo Mortensen as “Aragorn” and Christopher Lee as “Saruman” on the covers, spines and box sides. Back then, I didn't have issues with the particular editions of books that I acquire (now, I prefer hardbacks and trade paperbacks over mass markets, and try to avoid movie tie-ins as much as I can). And yes, these books are 11 years old, and the browned pages are definitely showing their age. I had to unearth the whole set from the storage (read: my old room at my mother's house) for the sole purpose of preparing myself, albeit futilely I think, for this Saturday's F2F6 over at the book club, with our dear Maria as moderator.

Only The Hobbit has no movie adaptation - yet.

Since then, I've also read The Silmarillion, the companion/guide to the trilogy, and The Children of Hurin, which I read fairly recently, or after I gave birth to my daughter in December 2010. I say “recently” because all the other Tolkien books, I've read almost a decade ago.

So. With just 3 days to go, how can I expect to familiarize myself once more with the details of Fellowship in time for our F2F6? I don't do rereads, and even if I did, my biggest problem would be the time constraints.

Good luck to me.