I will never forget the bookshelf my parents kept in our living room when I was growing up. My parents are avid readers, so they collected books on world cultures, art, architecture, opera, natural history, and world history. From this vast selection of topics, there was a series of three books packaged together in a special box that always drew my attention. When I pulled one out I found a strange red eye looking at me, surrounded by a field of black with bizarre red writing around the edge of the circle. At the top was what appeared to be four flames licking upward towards an inverted ring. The binding read, The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien.

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