A Year of Reading Lewis

There are writers who challenge you, confound you, entertain you, puzzle you, encourage you, or teach you, and then there is C.S. Lewis, who can manage to do all of those things in one piece of writing.

This musty Oxford don, whose academic speciality was Medieval and Renaissance Literature, was, according to Wikipedia, a “novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, and Christian apologist.”

When I first took my steps into faith, by happy accident (no accident at all, of course), one of the first books I read was Mere Christianity. This book, with its robust defence of the Christian faith using philosophy and reason, gave short shift to any idea I might have had that the Christian faith is only for simpletons or naive people who simply accepted their view of the world as “faith” which could not be questioned.

I have since read most of Lewis’ works, both fiction and non-fiction, and I have to say he is very much one of my top three of my all-time favourite writers.

But it has been a while since I have read much of his works, so I thought I would dive back into his writings this year, and share with you some of the delights I find along the way.

I will not be reading all of Narnia, however, it would probably take me all year to read through all of the series. But I might dip into one of the books, because you can’t cover Lewis without venturing into Narnia at least once.

I’m going to start with his other speculative fiction books, his Space Trilogy, consisting of Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. Throughout the course of the year I will also read through some of his non-fiction as well as some of his little-known short stories.

I’m looking forward to reconnecting with Lewis; in so many ways he feels like an old friend. I hope you enjoy my visits with him, too, and if I can encourage any of you to read some of his books as well, I will be very delighted.

Meet me here on the last Friday of the month, and we’ll talk Lewis together.

It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you,  you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

                                         – C.S. Lewis

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What about you? Have you read any C.S. Lewis? What is your favourite book? Which ones would you like to see me cover? Anyone want to read along with me? First up: Out of the Silent Planet.