Perhaps THE BEST little adventure story every written. Written for kids but certainly enjoyed by all. It has trolls, dragons, a kindly but strange wizard, dwarves, and of course Hobbits. It's really a story of bravery and strong friendships in the face of mishaps and evil things. What stands out in this book and The Lord of the Rings is that the world Tolkien creates sucks you in hopelessly. It only takes a few sentances and you really feel like you are along for the journey.
Tolkien creates a world with a huge history full of peoples and monsters and dwarves, with nature playing a large role in all of his books. The history part is small in The Hobbit since its focused on the journey and characters. The Hobbit is meant to be a lead-in to The Lord of the Rings, which has much more history and nature and more characters than the Hobbit. 'Rings is a darker tale and much more serious. Its harder to read, much longer, and I think the best adventure story ever written.
In response to Chris Fletcher, you have some valid criticisms of Tolkien. His writing style is a bit, well, sticky. When you think things should be moving faster and faster and the action is coming, you instead get "and then the big troll (or whatever) was killed. On to the next adventure."
However, the upside to this is you really feel like you are reading a kind of history book found in Middle Earth. I think Tolkien was a bit nuts and that's why his stuff was so good. He half-believed he really was writing and living in the world of his own making. He created entire languages, maps, unforgetable characters and mostly sad but gripping tales of adventure. Some people can't get through Tolkien's sticky prose when reading the lengthy The Lord of the Rings and I understand why, but stick with it! After reading the whole thing you will be glad you did. Remember no one can tell you how to read a book. If you come accross a paragraph about Bilbo's half-sister and all her family and the history of her cat, just skip it if you want. Tolkien really does go out on a limb sometimes escpecially with all the names and family trees and fictional history.
However, this same strange Tolkien style allows for re-reading and getting much more information, and a sense of depth and life to Middle Earth that is truely amazing. I have read the series, both the Hobbit and LOTR twice and I got much more the second time through. I read it slower and tried to keep the characters and places in my head. You can buy a nice map book which lays out all of tolkiens worlds in detail including battles and paths that the characters follow. Its by Karen Wynn Fonstad and has a lot of detail. Careful though, some plot happenings are given away in the tracking of characters and the battle maps :D
If you really want to get background info you have to start with the Silmarillion. And that beast can drive you crazy. Parts of it are amazing to read however and it explains some of the history that was confusing in LOTR. Where did Galadriel come from? What or who exactly is Gandalf? What's a wizard? What are the counterparts to Sauron and other evil in middle earth? Surely there must be some good gods or angel like beings? So, Silmarillion: very difficult, for tolkein fans mostly. Its long, hundreds of names, not a continuous story. It does explain a great deal about the gods and formation of Middle Earth and many things and people and places that show up later in the Hobbit and LOTR.
Hobbit: very easy fun read, not a whole lot of depth, short, great characters, great adventure.
The Lord of the Rings: medium difficulty, lots of depth, some history, lots of names, some difficult and confusing paragraphs, but a truely great tale. The kind of book where you find yourself kinda stunned after reading the last sentance. (The movie is not bad, but messed things up a bit, read the book! Notice that Tolkien's name is not on the movie. The family took their name off it because of the Hollywood treatment.)

Brand	N/A
Rating	4.8 (1421 ratings)
Price	$20
Category	Art, Music & Photography

The Hobbit (or There and Back Again)