Hobbit and stories

I started listening to the Hobbit book on tape this morning. I just finished the first disc. I love good stories. I love feeling like I'm on adventure with Thorin and Bilbo, all the while, I am  sitting in the living room, paying bills, dusting, wrapping presents.  In recent months, I realized how much I love stories. I've always loved reading, but I have been trying to take some time to understand story telling better. Like why some authors write, their thoughts on story telling, ways of communicating with their audience, and other books they appreciate. Books are so beautiful. I love good stories. I love reading, watching plays, good TV shows (i.e. ones that actually tell a good story, as opposed to just creating meaningless drama by having every one sleep with ever one else). I try to appreciate good story tellers. I have many relatives that are great story tellers. One that comes to mind is my brother-in-law Tom. He is very good at telling a story in a way that makes you interested in what happens next and laugh out loud at the funny bits.
Every Christmas, we buy a new Christmas book. So far, we have

• The Christmas Candle by Richard Paul Evans (who, apparently, is a 2nd cousin of Jesse's mom, or something like that). Jess was given this one on his mission
• The Night Before Christmas (illustrated by Jan Brett, with a DVD narrating the story by Jim Dale). We bought this one last year.
• The Gingerbread Man, given to us as a wedding present, if I remember correctly.
• The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, a gift from our first Christmas
• A Christmas Dress for Ellen, as told by President Thomas S. Monson. This one is also from Jesse's mission.
• Good King Wenceslas, which we picked up this year.

The last one was read last night, as part of our Advent Calendar. It includes a DVD of parts of last years Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert, with Jane Seymour narrating the story. I love watching it and reading the book. Story telling is so cool. We were able to go to that concert last year, so it's especially cool to be able to watch it over and over again.