A book that changed your life

Once, during a Christmas away from home, I asked for only one thing: a Harry Potter book. I did not get my wish. The one who ran the the errand of buying the book bought me something else instead. I was furious, how dare that person presume to buy another book instead of the Harry Potter series which is the best fantasy series in the entire world?! The Potter books were sold out and that person bought the book which looked as interesting as Harry Potter. I received The Hobbit, a book by JRR Tolkien. I did not know who he was back then, I was in grade school and was not aware there were other books written aside from Harry Potter (HP was the center of my bookworm existence). I can vividly recall sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at The Hobbit while shedding tears of bitterness at not being able to know what happens next in the Harry Potter series. I refused to read the book, until one day when we went to the beach and as I was and still am a very unsociable creature and having exhausted the meager supply of books in my aunt's cabinet and have deemed to read a Danielle Steel novel (who I really don't like even then) because of lack of other books, I bought The Hobbit. I read it and I fell in love. It started my romance with epic fantasies, the genre of books which for me is the greatest of them all. It takes great imagination to envision a world, a country, a land with such intricate stories that even when read a thousand times over by different people, will still hold magic among the pages.