Culture break open thread: In a hole in the ground

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

Today is the 80th anniversary of the publication of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, and literature was never the same afterwards. It certainly wasn't for me, a wee lad of 9, as my brother introduced me to the book. From there I went on to The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, and Dickens and Joyce and Woolf and a degree in English and a master's in library science. The Hobbit turned me into a reader, and for that it will always have a special place in my heart.

This is your open thread.