I agree with the whole SPN - LOTR connection and Samwise being the hero of the books.  It's been a while now but I think I really liked book!Faramir when I read it.  At first, I mostly felt like the books were bits of really exciting action separated by 300 pages of description of crossing the countryside and rhyming verse, sometimes written in a foreign language.  I confess I skimmed quite a bit of it when I read them after the first movie.  Then my kid got interested at about age 6 so we read big chunks of them together. I was really surprised at how much my real life each time impacted my feelings about the books.  I enjoyed them a lot more reading aloud.  Maybe that's part of their staying power.  There's something for everyone and you get something different out of them each time.  I'm glad they left the attack on the shire mostly out of the movie.  I think the movie benefitted from being able to interweave the two halves of each book together also.

The Hobbit is a fun read about an adventure that flows more like a story than the other books.  Part of the fun with the book is seeing what's going to happen next and if you wait til after you see the movie it will be a huge spoiler.  I suppose that could work the other way too but the movies have added extra stuff not in the book and it somewhat confuses the story.  Martin Freeman is a really great Bilbo though so you have that to look forward too.  I'll be interested to get your take on it after you've seen it.