THE HOBBIT / J. R. R. Tolkien / Book Review / Brian Lee Durfee (spoiler free) from Tolkien's grave.

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:01]All right, everybody. Welcome back to the number one television program in the history of the entire universe. I am Brian Lee Durfee, author of The Forgetting Moon, Blackest Heart, and Lonesome Crown, all three books published by Simon and Schuster's Saga Press.

[00:00:19]Today, I'm going to be reviewing The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien.

[00:00:26]And we are actually reviewing it at Tolkien's graveside in Wolvercote, England.

[00:00:36]The cemetery here, you can see the uh cemetery plot. Before we get into the book review, let's just kind of look at the uh cemetery plot here a little bit.

[00:00:49]People have been leaving their mementos and things like that.

[00:00:54]People have been leaving their books.

[00:00:57]I brought a copy of my book all the way from America.

[00:01:03]And I will be leaving it on the grave side here.

[00:01:08]Before I leave this review, what I wanted to say about this review, I'm actually going to shoot two videos here at the graveside. One, a review of The Hobbit, which was the first Tolkien book I ever read, and then a review of not a review, but more I'm going to do another video of just how much Tolkien has meant to me in my life, how his writing changed my life, and um how I was introduced to Tolkien as a young man, as a reader, as a young reader, how I found his books, that whole journey.

[00:01:39]But for now, we're just going to do a short little review of The Hobbit here, and then I'm going to place my book on his grave. Um and uh it's going to be short. I mean, everybody's read The Hobbit. We all know the story. I remember the first time I read it.

[00:01:55]Um I was young. It was the second overall fantasy novel I read. I read The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks first, and then then I read The Hobbit and then The Lord of the Rings. And as soon as I read The Hobbit, I mean, I was just I was reading it one chapter every night, and I just didn't want it to end.

[00:02:15]And I remember just wanting to live in Bilbo Baggins' little hobbit hole, in his cozy little hobbit hole. And I was nervous when the dwarves showed up that they were going to make a mess of his hobbit hole. And then when they went on their adventure, I was all for it. I was all for it. And then they met the trolls, they went to the Misty Mountains, Bilbo and Gollum, the riddle game. I was so riveted. I I was I was like 12 years old, 11 years old when I read this book.

[00:02:47]And it was just an amazing experience for a youngster.

[00:02:53]And it's an honor to be at his graveside. The book gets book gets a thumbs up.

[00:02:58]10 out of 10 stars.

[00:03:00]Um I love everything about it. The dragons, the dwarves, the adventures, the spiders, everything. And I am going to place my book amongst all the other mementos here on his graveside.

[00:03:17]And there we go.