content: Please note that this review is specifically about the non-BBC audiobook version.I adore "The Hobbit." My first memory of my father is hearing him read the first page of the book to me as a very young child, and I've read the book countless times since then. Given my long commute currently, I've become a big fan of audiobooks. I picked this up with high hopes.What a let down. The audiobook is abridged, although the package didn't note that anywhere, the abridgement choices are odd at best (leave in Beorn but take out almost everything of Rivendell?), the voice actors seem to be interested in portraying the characters as comically and unpleasantly as possible (I want to give all of the elves in the audiobook some throat lozenges) and to top it all off, the sound quality is incredibly poor and inconsistent....