A 1979 printing of The Hobbit at a local coffee place. I used to buy all sorts of copies of this book when I was a kid. My fave is still a reproduction of the original print with the Tolkien designed dust jacket and the colour plates.
I was reflecting on how the fandom is so intense that I don’t consider myself a fan - despite having read The Silmarilion twice! You can put that down to the movies having created ultra fans.
I saw something this morning saying that, were Smaug the dragon real, his mountain of riches would make him only the fifteenth richest person on Earth. Those above him are people hoarding more wealth than a dragon hoard. Capitalism has reached the stage that feudalism reached under the “Sun King,” Louis XIV - where the injustice of the system became completely undeniable.