When I was in junior high, I stumbled across an odd looking paperback amongst the school library shelves. A fat little man with curly black hair, dressed in medieval garb and holding a sword was being stalked by a hairless creature with bulbous green eyes in a cave. It was, and still might be, one of the ugliest book covers I’ve ever seen. But it did its job. I plucked it from the shelf, intrigued. I’d never heard of this book, The Hobbit, or its author, J. R. R. Tolkien. Little did I know just how much that book with the horrid little cover would change my life. I don’t…