Verse of the Day {KJV}

Monday, February 24, 2014

Book Review: The A-Z of C. S. Lewis {LitFuse Blog Tour}

About the book: Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of C. S. Lewis's death, this complete guide covers all of Lewis' works, from his literary criticism to Narnia.

C. S. Lewis's work is widely known and regarded, but enthusiasts are often only aware of one part of his work-his children's stories and his popular theology; and yet he wrote so much more, including science fiction and literary criticism. This volume brings together all aspects of C S Lewis's life and thought. Arranged in alphabetical order, it begins with The Abolition of Man-written in 1943 and described as "almost my favorite"-to Wormwood, a character in The Screwtape Letters. This book will delight anyone who is interested in C. S. Lewis and wants to learn more about him, his thought, his works, and his life.

Purchase a copy: http://ow.ly/tzmgH 

About the author: Colin Duriez was for many years a commissioning editor at Inter-Varsity Press UK. He has subsequently appeared as a commentator on DVDs of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, and BBC television's The Worlds of Fantasy. He is also the author of The Inklings Handbook (with the late David Porter), J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Story of Their Friendship, and Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, and has contributed to definitive reference works relating to Tolkien such as The Tolkien Encyclopedia (Routledge).

Read others' reviews.

My thoughts:
Books I've read by C. S. Lewis include The Chronicle of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters. I have read other books {okay, just one} that are about C. S. Lewis, but none before by Colin Duriez. I did not expect this to be an encyclopedia in the sense that it truly is an encyclopedia, albeit very condensed. I'd hoped for more conversational writing rather than an alphabetized listing from a-z. I was wrong and I just have to go from there. Now, I don't want to give the impression that this is not a good book, but do want to clarify it is an encyclopedia. I did find the book to be very interesting. As I've not read a lot by Lewis, there were entries that I am not familiar with, such as...actually who am I kidding; anything that wasn't from the two books I have read I didn't know about. 

Some of the entries are very short, such as "Lilygloves" {a chief mole in Prince Caspian...; page 172} and "pavender" {a rainbow colored fish found in Narnia...; page 233}. While others are pages long, such as "Owen Barfield" {a close friend of Lewis's; pages 39-42} and "paganism and mysticism in Lewis" {pages 231-233}. 

While it is a nice little encyclopedia, I'm not really sure how often I will actually use it. Perhaps when I come across others' remarks about Lewis's works, I will pull out my little C. S. Lewis encyclopedia and have a better understanding of what they are talking about. 

Disclaimer: I received this book free from LitFuse in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. See Disclaimer/Policies.

1 comment:

  1. Oh, I'd love it. Just because I love Lewis, and I would love to have it as a reference. I read a biography of Lewis from Colin Duriez.

    ReplyDelete

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