Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an unexpected journey ‘there and back again’. They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon… With the forthcoming release of the first part of The Hobbit it seems only right and proper that I get around to finally reading the book for the first time. Yes, I know I’m thirty-eight and I should probably should have read it years ago but I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m more than a little intimidated by what you would probably term classic fiction. There I’ve said it. I’ve finally admitted my secret shame. Why am I so overwhelmed? Well, The Hobbit is the perfect example to help illustrate my problem. The book was first published way back in 1937. Since then, many people, the vast majority of whom (probably all) are far cleverer than I, have read it and produced an in-depth…