Thanks to many years of mostly crappy English teachers, one the activities I hated most about taking English classes what the long drawn out process of picking a book apart to finding hidden meanings, themes and author intentions that seem only to exist in the teacher's mind. The discussions by themselves were often enjoyable, it was all that followed that sucked the joy out of reading with the reports that exist to simply regurgitate the teacher's opinion back at them, followed by some project around the book that ends with a test where you write another essay and answer various multiple choice questions to prove you read the book and note the cliff notes. Going through that process year after year is almost the reason I stopped reading for pleasure and likely didn't encourage it in many others.

Thankfully that kind of deep analysis doesn't always have to be a painful process and can actually help you get more from a book then you would expect. Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit by Corey Olsen is an excellent "reader's companion to The Hobbit" for those that love the book and want to try to get everything they can from Tolkien's work as it celebrates its 75th Anniversary. Exploring the Hobbit examines the book as it was first published on September 21, 1937 that tries to avoid taking liberties with author intent to show you every nugget of information from the novel. This book is not designed to try to help you interpret the upcoming Hobbit Trilogy or try to figure out how The Lord of the Rings Appendixes may be incorporated into the movies.
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