Gaiman was able to read at the age of four. He said, "I was a reader. I loved reading. Reading things gave me pleasure. I was very good at most subjects in school, not because I had any particular aptitude in them, but because normally on the first day of school they'd hand out schoolbooks, and I'd read them—which would mean that I'd know what was coming up, because I'd read it." When he was about ten years old, he read his way through the works of Dennis Wheatley, where especially "The Ka of Gifford Hillary" and "The Haunting of Toby Jugg" made an impact on him. One work that made a particular impression on him was J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" from his school library. Although the library only had the first two of the novel's three volumes, Neil consistently checked them out and read them. He later won the school English prize and the school reading prize, enabling him to finally acquire the third volume.