Thank you for the holiday/ birthday wishes. Mail was slow bevause IIRC I posted your card a month before my birthday.

Starting with the Silmarillion would be enough to put anyone off Tolkien for life. I think if I'd read even The Hobbit first, I'd never have gone on to LOTR. As it was I started there, and long before there was anything similar written by anyone. (Narnia was the closest thing, but Narnia was British-cozy familiar.) So I was knocked over by it. Now I'm not sure I could even reread it.