[Brief] J.R.R. Tolkien's Voice & The Hobbit

The charming world of the shire and the dangerous outside world - why does this juxtaposition attract us so?

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This entire little post is motivated by stumbling upon an audio material from the BBC, which talks about the origins of The Hobbit and about J.R.R. Tolkien, and contains fragments from interviews with Tolkien himself and with a few other relevant characters. I find this audio material as warm as an evening spent in the shire, drinking beer and chatting by the fire.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/p00y24d0

A few more correlated pieces of information:

Here is how Tolkien imagined (and drew) the picture of Bilbo Baggins' home.

Source: The Guardian

By the way, the website of The Tolkien Society has a good amount of information on Tolkien and on his writings (and you can find further information about The Inklings here).

Finally, the trailer for the upcoming movie based on the book, from the same Peter Jackson who made the superlative The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.