Category: Book Reviews

Critiquing Critiques: A Lewis Insight (Part 2)

In my last C. S. Lewis post, I drew from one of his lesser-known essays entitled “On Criticism.” I find that it contains a number of great insights into how reviewers of books can fall into errors. The first error Lewis pointed out is that some reviewers simply don’t do the work necessary: they don’t read carefully and miss the mark on the actual facts contained in a book. A second error, according to Lewis, is when a reviewer attempts… Read more »

Critiquing Critiques: A Lewis Insight (Part 1)

Finding something by C. S. Lewis that I’ve never read previously is always a joy (and I believe I’m talking about “joy” in the true Lewisian sense). One of his essays, “On Criticism,” has a series of pearls that I will share over the next few Saturdays. Every author needs to receive constructive criticism. Lewis welcomed it to improve his writing, and since he wrote so much, he was subjected to a vast number of critiques. While he appreciated good… Read more »

Focusing on the Eternal

Last year’s political season was probably the most divisive in modern American history. The nature of the presidential race was such that I felt compelled to concentrate on it in this blog. However, I always sought to provide thoughts on other topics as well. After all, this blog is not about politics and government only; it’s about life overall. I have a daily routine of online sites I check for current events and commentary, but I don’t limit my reading… Read more »

Lewis on Visiting America

Why write a book on C. S. Lewis’s connections with America when he never set foot on American soil? Well, connections are made in many ways, and this book stresses the impact Lewis made on individual Americans. During his lifetime, he received countless invitations to visit but he always had reasons for why he couldn’t do it. Although Lewis declined all invitations to visit America due to his personal circumstances, that did not mean he wasn’t attracted to some of… Read more »

America Discovers C. S. Lewis

I’m pleased to announce that my new book, America Discovers C. S. Lewis: His Profound Impact, is now published. It’s so new that it won’t be on Amazon for a few weeks yet, but it can be purchased directly from the publisher, Wipf & Stock, at this link: http://wipfandstock.com/america-discovers-c-s-lewis.html I’m delighted to have a number of excellent endorsements for the book. Walter Hooper, Lewis’s friend and secretary near the end of his life, is the subject of one of the… Read more »

Modernity & the Church

I’m working my way through a new book by Os Guinness called Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization. It diagnoses the problem of the church as it becomes co-opted by modernity. Guinness says, quite correctly, I believe, that it’s not the frontal attacks of secularism and atheism that do the real damage; rather, it is the seduction and distortion of the faith through modernity that leads us astray and destroys the Christian witness to… Read more »

Looking for Some Good Reads?

I have some book reviews for you today. I’ve been expanding my reading of books about C. S. Lewis. Some of my earliest reading of Lewis was his Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. I’ve been aware of David Downing’s analysis of these novels, Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy, for quite some time; I finally got around to reading it. Every Lewis fan has a favorite in… Read more »