In my life as a reader, the first significant thing I remember is sitting on my dad’s lap listening to him reading The Hobbit to me. I don’t know how old I was; I must have been preliterate or just learning to read. It was a gorgeous book, a hefty hardback bound in dimpled earth-green leather that slid out of an earth-green leather box; both the book and the box were decorated with primitive borders and gilt runic inscriptions in one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s invented languages.