A fun, mystical read. Follow the hobbit on his journey from a quiet and afraid little guy to an adventurer. I liked how he went against the conventional wisdom (Hobbit-sense) and chose to pave his own path. Autonomy really is one of the sweetest joys of life.
I'm not sure if Tolkien wanted to get too metaphorical with the book. As we know from the Foreword to the 2nd edition of The Fellowship of the Ring (volume 1 of the three part series The Lord of The Rings), he did not intend for the book to be interpreted as an Allegory to WW2. This basically means that he wanted the novel to be treated as a fantasy tale, not to be used to interpret modern events. Anyways, I enjoyed this read and I'm very excited with how The Fellowship of the Ring is reading right now.
I was first introduced to Mr. Pollan when I watched a podcast he was featured on. He was talking about caffeine, specifically through coffee, and the impact it had. I thought he had some really interesting thoughts about it, so I decided to buy his book about food rules. I read this every time I was on campus over lunch. I think it was pretty funny that people who saw me would see me eating as I was holding a book called An Eater's Manual.
Anyways, it's a fun little read. I think one of the most important rules was to only eat animals that themselves have eaten well. We must remind ourselves that it's in the interests of these industrial companies to fatten up their animals with garbage, which in turn we consume too.
I also like his rules of eating less and not eating when bored. Also, I'm not sure if I'm a fan of his rule to eat mostly vegetables. They just taste bad.