For day 3 of this 7 day challenge, which my good friend (and fellow author) Ashley Hunter challenged me to carry out, I'm listing The Hobbit. Neither this book nor this author requires any kind of introduction. The ideas and themes that get worked out throughout the narrative are too many to count--but the ones that stuck out to me are fellowship, friendship, trust, and heroism. This is a quintessential adventure book. An epic quest that doesn't forget the magical artifacts, the dragons, or the monsters. Most importantly, perhaps, its hero begins neither as capable nor over-willing - but grows into precisely what is required to fulfill what is expected of them. Bilbo works not to reclaim his birthright, not to line his pockets with gold, and not to make a name for himself. He works only because his friends need him to. Because he is the only one that can. And he does his very best. Even though all he wants is to go back home. The Hobbit holds in its heart everything that is great about fantasy, and has very little that isn't worth admiring in its text. It will forever hold one of the greatest opening paragraphs in my mind, and I'll share it here below. I don't have to reach far to pull this book into my lap to write this down: "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."
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