The Hobbit Book Club Questions

Ten discussion questions for J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937) - written for groups who have finished the book and want an argument, not a summary. Full spoilers ahead. The first six are anchored to this novel’s specific turns; the last four keep the room talking when the wine runs low.

Print questions

The Hobbit book club questions · readeasy.app/book-club-questions/the-hobbit/

1. 1. The book calls Bilbo a burglar before he ever steals anything honestly. By the end, what was his real job on the expedition - and which moment actually earned his share of the treasure?

2. 2. Gandalf recruits Bilbo and then disappears at every critical moment until the end. Is his pattern of leaving a kind of teaching, manipulation, or something the narrator never quite explains?

3. 3. Thorin dies forgiving Bilbo, and Bilbo gives away the Arkenstone. Would Thorin have made a just king under the mountain if he had lived - or was the dragon-sickness already the reign?

4. 4. Tolkien's narrator keeps interrupting with jokes, songs and asides to the reader. How much of the book's meaning lives in that voice - and what changes when the same world returns in The Lord of the Rings without the jokes?

5. 5. Gollum loses a riddle game by accident and a treasure by theft. Who behaved worse in the dark - Bilbo, who cheated with the pocket question, or Gollum, who planned murder?

6. 6. Bard shoots the arrow, but the dwarves hoard the hoard, the elves besiege the gate, and the goblins arrive to unify everyone. Who bears responsibility for the Battle of Five Armies - greed, justice, or bad luck?

7. 7. Bilbo returns rich and permanently unfashionable, knocking cups and telling impossible stories. What did the adventure actually cost him - and was his own answer, that he came back, enough?

8. 8. The elves of Rivendell sing in circles and the elves of Mirkwood jail their guests and trade barrels of wine. Which elf-court does Tolkien want you to prefer, and how can you tell?

9. 9. Beorn feeds the party, fights as a bear and shows up at the end to bury the goblin chief. Why does the book spend a full chapter on a man who changes shape - what does he see that no one else will say aloud?

10. 10. If you first read this as a child and again as an adult, which scene changed the most between readings - and what did the adult reader find that the child could not?

11. 11. On a scale of 'couldn't finish it' to 'immediately reread it', where does The Hobbit land for you — and what tipped it?

12. 12. Which character in The Hobbit changed the most in your eyes by the end, and which one refused to change at all?

13. 13. If The Hobbit were published today as a debut, how would it be received? What would the reviews get wrong?

14. 14. What did you believe about The Hobbit before reading that turned out to be false?

How to run the meeting

Don’t go in order. Open with whichever question matches your group’s mood - a quiet room starts with a character question, a lively one starts with an argument about the ending. Let one question run until it genuinely dies, then jump. Two rules keep it alive: every claim gets pointed at the text (someone will have the book on their phone), and “I hated it” counts as an opinion that must be defended like any other.

The Hobbit runs about 95,000 words - roughly 310 pages - so a month between meetings is comfortable at 30 minutes a day; the full session math is on the reading time page. For a quicker take on who actually finished it, open the meeting with the The Hobbit quiz - scores settle grudges faster than discussion. The book’s famous quotes make good meeting-openers too, and if the group wants a next pick built like this one, the books like The Hobbit list is the handout.

Taking the club through the whole author? Our J.R.R. Tolkien books in order guide orders the full shelf.

Ground rules that save meetings

Three habits keep a club alive past the first bottle. First, the person who picked the book opens the discussion - they owe the group one sentence on why they chose it, which is usually the strongest prompt of the night. Second, silence is allowed to sit for a full ten seconds; the second answer is always better than the first. Third, end on the next pick while everyone is still arguing, because momentum is the only renewable fuel a book club has. The questions above are written to survive all three rules.

More book club question sets

The Odyssey questions, Moby-Dick questions, Don Quixote questions, Alice in Wonderland questions - or grab questions for all 133 classics. For the end-of-season meeting, the mixed-classics book quiz settles who read the most.

Frequently asked questions