The Hobbit
J. R. R. Tolkien
285 pages
originally published in 1937

The Hobbit may be intended as a children's book, but that hasn't stopped it from becoming one of the classics of fantasy, even if Tolkien's later Lord of the Rings overshadows it.

It's the story of Bilbo Baggins, a respectable hobbit who falls in the company of dwarves and worse, who goes off on a harebrained trek to kill a dragon and steal its treasure and unwittingly sets in motion forces far greater then himself....