Why The Hobbit, you ask? Why not Tolkien's true masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings? Firstly, because there is a fair amount of cheating going on here. I couldn't exactly fit the entire series into The Top 10 without excluding several other worthy books, so I simply included the first book as a representative of the series. Second of all, The Hobbit is by far my favorite book in the series. Despite The Fellowship's epic beginnings, despite The Two Towers's turmoil of emotion, and despite The Return of the King's victorious conclusion, The Hobbit is still the book I turn to when I am in need of comfort.
The Hobbit is a teddy bear. There's no better way to describe it. The book is so innocent and sweet that it takes on a childish, fairytale-like air which is enchanting to no end. Bilbo makes the perfect reluctant hero, forever thinking fondly of his fire at home and yet always drawn on by his "Tookish" attraction to adventure. There is nothing evil, nothing sinister, nothing even of the disillusionment of maturity in his nature. He encounters hardship, but never does it taint him, never does it penetrate his child-like innocence. And most of all, every time Bilbo mutters, "Confusticate and bebother these dwarves!" I can't help but want to hug him.
I am trying to make these reviews shorter, so to wrap up I declare that The Hobbit is the Song of Innocence to The Lord of the Ring's Song of Experience. It is not a "nasty, dirty, wet" book "filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy" book "with nothing in it to sit down on or eat." It is The Hobbit, "and that means comfort."
