[mcv]

First time I read The Lord of the Rings, I was 12 or so, my dad was reading The Two Towers, my older brother was reading The Fellowship of the Ring, so I decided I should just start reading The Return of the King.

So my first memories of LotR are Pippin riding Shadowfax behind Gandalf.

When my dad finished book 2, I dropped book 3 and switched, and then to book 1 when my brother finished the first book, so that was a bit of a fragmented experience.

Maybe there's also a lesson here to read books with your kids, or at least where they can see you read. It's contagious.

[bombcar]

My dad ended up buying the famous pirate Ace version of the Fellowship of the Ring - and it had absolutely no indication it was the first part of a combined trilogy so he thought it has a VERY abrupt weird ending until he later learned there were other volumes.

[mcv]

My dad had all three, my mom had only the first (of the same edition), so we had two copies of Fellowship at home. I guess I should have started in the other copy, except when I started we were on vacation and we didn't bring the duplicate Fellowship with us.