Best audio version of the Hobbit and LOTR

[EmmaNZ]

Which readers have you preferred? 

 

Thanks a lot!

[Jane Elliot]

Which readers have you preferred? 

 

Thanks a lot!

 

For unabridged, non-dramatized versions, I could only ever find one reader -- Rob Inglis. We do like him as a reader though.

[jjeepa]

Rob Inglis!!!!  He is fantastic!  No need to look any further  :001_smile:

[Guest]

The dramatized hobbit, where it is acted out is wonderful. We've listened to it several times.

 

http://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?id=042854

[regentrude]

The Mind's Eye.

 

We also have the BBC one, but Minds Eye is our favorite.

[tammyw]

I think we might need to do this one this year. I tried reading aloud once and it didn't go very far.

[wathe]

Kara Shallenberg has recorded herself reading this to her kids.  (complete with occasional  little  questions from the kids, very cute).  Scroll way down to find it on her page.  My kids like her best.  They found Rob Ingliss too "scary"

[EmmaNZ]

Thanks very much! Will check these out.....

[redsquirrel]

For the Hobbit,  suggest Nicol Williams.  This is my favorite, and my kids adore it. It is slightly abridged, in that he omits some 'he said' etc from the dialogues. He does voices for the different characters, like Jim Dale does on the Harry Potter audio books, so sometimes he doesn't need to keep the dialog tag. It makes for a smoother, more storylike reading.

 

You can download it here for free.  He did it back in the 1970s and it was on vinyl.  It went out of print long ago.  He put it on his own website because he loved it so much. Anyway, he died but his son is keeping it up.

 

Now, at some point, I was able to download it from his website and I put it into my itunes...but I have no idea how I did that. I might have right clicked and saved to itunes?  But I can put it on an ipod if I want to.

 

http://www.nicolwilliamson.com/?p=125

[crazyforlatin]

Nicol Williamson is the version we used to listen to all the time when DD was very young.

 

ETA: Like PP, I downloaded it to iTunes, and now can't remember how I converted YouTube to iPod audio.

Edited September 6, 2016 by crazyforlatin

[nansk]

It's available on Archive.org as MP3 files: https://archive.org/details/NicolWilliamsonHobbit

[redsquirrel]

It's available on Archive.org as MP3 files: https://archive.org/details/NicolWilliamsonHobbit

 

that's it!  I asked dh how I got it into itunes and he said he thought it was an Mp3. 

 

I feel better!

 

It was broken up into 6 separate parts and we burned 2 parts onto a CD, back in the day.  So we had three CDs with The Hobbit.

Edited September 8, 2016 by redsquirrel

[tammyw]

Curious if anyone has watched the movies (for after) with a ten year old? I've never seen them and wondering if they are good/appropriate?

[redsquirrel]

Curious if anyone has watched the movies (for after) with a ten year old? I've never seen them and wondering if they are good/appropriate?

 

I think that is such a personal thing, that you really have to watch them yourself first.  I think my youngest was 8, about to turn 9, when we saw the first hobbit movie in the theaters. It was his first pg-13 movie and it was fine for him.   And we didn't let him watch the LoTR trilogy until all the Hobbit movies were out, so he was close to 12...it was a convenient excuse to put it off, lol.  DS1 was about 12 when he saw the LoTR trilogy.

 

I personally found the LoTR movies to be darker and more violent than The Hobbit movies.  And we kept our family rule that before you see the movie you have to have read (or listened to) the books.  So ds1 had The Hobbit read to him and then the trilogy, and he had also read them to himself before seeing the movies.  DS2 had Hobbit and the Trilogy as a read out loud before he saw the movies, but hasn't read them to himself yet.

 

But you really need to watch them yourself first. I know people who let their 5 year olds...and younger...watch LoTR. 

[purduemeche]

Rob Inglis!!!!  He is fantastic!  No need to look any further  :001_smile:

 

Ditto.