The Hobbit

I wanted to use this for my classroom to follow along with the book because my students enjoy listening to exciting versions of books on audio... well if that's your plan also this is not what you're looking for. This is not the book being read. It follows more to the movie...

This review is for the CD recording. I gave this recording 4 stars only because I didn't realize it would be a shortened or changed version, made for radio. Having said that, it was still a very entertaining recording. I enjoyed the fact that each character was read by a different actor - which gave the performance a very realistic feel.

Excellent radio adaptation to Tolkien's classic. The background music is a bit dated, but still a fun classic. Must have for any serious LOTR fan.

Loved listening to The Hobbit while driving on the highway. This is a great adaptation and the character voices and sound effects really add to the dramatic impact of the book.

I have really fond memories of listening to The Hobbit (There and Back Again) as a kid, at night, in the dark with my whole family. What an amazing, wonderful story. Listen for an hour or two each night and be swept away to a world of treasure, magic and adventure...

This is the version produced by National Public Radio a long time ago. This is not the BBC version, which is IMHO an inferior product compared to this one. In fact, when I first bought this product, it was on cassette tape. I firmly believe that this version is the best audio presentation ever produced of tolkiens work. Why? Well, its really a voice character based play complete with ambient sound effects, it's theater of the mind set in tolkiens universe. It's NOT a plain old voice of one person doing his best to give you a read over like some grandpa reading a bedside story (not that i'm against that mind you, it's just not my cup of tea, ya know). My kids grew up hearing this on long car trips, and it kept us all entertained with a shared universe we could all enjoy at the same time. My tapes had gone bad and I thought we would never be able to hear this great and wonderful audio play again. Lo and behold, its on CD and Amazon has it. It's now playing behind me as I write this review and my youngest, home from college on break, is enjoying it with me. "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit", go Bilbo, go Tolkien, go Amazon and NPR.

A great product.This is something I used to listen to for hours at a time as a kid. This is the Mind's Eye broadcast, and best I can tell, sounds the same as it did on tape. The files themselves if you wish to download to your computer, are nicely labeled something I have seen rather rarely with other audio books, or radio productions.Nothing really else to say, other and a great product worth getting.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable recording. Grand kids loved it. Somewhat uneven voice volume between some of the different characters. Thorin's reader particularly prompting me to fiddle with volume, only to have to drop it for others. Aside from this slight annoyance, a well-produced and read version.

I had no idea this was read by Inspector George Gently. And, I must say, thank God I didn't as I sometimes find him somewhat contrived and unnatural in his acting. So, when I found myself loving the storytelling art in this book and googled the name Martin Shaw (knowing that I had seen or heard his name before - bare with me, I'm not British) I could not have bern more surprised when his face popped up. Having said this, I loved, loved, loved this version of Tolkien's masterpiece that has been making me company on the way to work. Highly recommend it!

Four cassettes number 5 6 7 8 where was number one two three and fourSo started in the middle very dissapointed

A good package, but it does not make plain that this is an abridged version, lacking some key sections

This American version of the Hobbit is delightful. I much prefer this version to the BBC one, although some of the accents may sound strange at first, they suit the Dwarves, but not the Elves!, but you soon forget that and just enjoy the story, which is told in 4 CDs.The music is enchanting and adds to the magic of the story. I'll be playing this again and again.

This is the best audiobook of the hobbit out there, Martin Shaw reads it beautifully and his voice lends itself to the story perfectly