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As if we needed an excuse to dive back into J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, a new audiobook version of the prelude to The Lord of the Ringsread by Andy Serkis is coming out in September.

To tease the release of this version of The Hobbit, publisher HarperCollins released a snippet of Serkis's narration at the very beginning of the book. It's just about two minutes of the book's total 7-hour-and-40-minute running time and it sounds great.

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Serkis portrayed Gollum in the Peter Jackson-directed The Lord of the Ringstrilogy and was second unit director on The Hobbittrilogy so he's certainly no stranger to Middle Earth. Plus he has a voice that just seems to fit the story very well.

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He's also not a stranger to reading The Hobbitout loud. Back in May he read the book during a charity live stream, and he has also applied his Gollum voice to the book to hilarious effect.

You can pre-order the Serkis version of The Hobbitnow.

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