Pogo: The Complete Daily & Sunday
Comic Strips Vol. 4: Under the Bamboozle Bush
by Walt Kelly, Carolyn Kelly
Pogo The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips: Pockets Full of Pie (Vol. 7)
Saturday, October 3, 2020
Items from the Wish List: Walt Kelly
Colin Wilson
The Outsider, by Colin Wilson.
“The Outsider is the seminal work on alienation, creativity
& the modern mind-set. First published over forty years ago, it made its
youthful author England's most controversial intellectual. The Outsider is an
individual engaged in an intense self-exploration-a person who lives at the
edge, challenges cultural values & "stands for Truth." Born into a
world without perspective, where others simply drift thru life, the Outsider
creates his own set of rules & lives them in an unsympathetic environment.
The relative handful of people who fulfilled Wilson's definition of the
Outsider in the 1950s have now become a significant social force, making
Wilson's vision more relevant today than ever. Thru the works & lives of
various artists--including Kafka, Camus, Eliot, Hemingway, Hesse, Lawrence, Van
Gogh, Nijinsky, Shaw, Blake, Nietzsche & Dostoyevski--Wilson explores the
psyche of the Outsider, his effect on society & society's effect on him.
Wilson illuminates the struggle of those who seek not only the transformation
of Self but also the transformation of society as a whole. The book is
essential for everyone who shares his conviction that "a new religion is
needed". – Goodreads. This used to be Mike’s copy.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Philosophy. Sociology. Softcover.
The Craft of the Novel, by Colin Wilson.
“The Evolution of the Novel and the Nature of Creativity.” “Links
the development of the form to the evolution of human consciousness and
explores the creative process.” - AbeBooks. This used to be Mike’s book.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Sociology. Softcover.
The Occult, by Colin Wilson.
“Colin Wilson’s classic work is an essential guide to the
mind-expanding experiences and discoveries of the occult in the 20th century.
He produces a wonderfully skillful synthesis of the available material—one that
sees the occult in the light of reason and reason in the light of the mystical
and paranormal. The result is a wide-ranging survey of the subject that
provides a comprehensive history of magic, an insightful exploration of our
latent powers, and a journey of enlightenment.” – Amazon. A groovy, chatty
book, that never really asserts anything but implies much. It’s sort of an
advanced version of the Daniel Cohen books of my youth with a dash of Wilson’s
psychological theories. Browser, reference, dude speculation, this was Mike’s
book.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Speculative History. Softcover.
The Mammoth Book of the Supernatural, by Colin Wilson.
“The most comprehensive survey of the supernatural and the
occult ever is written by perhaps the most knowledgeable and creative thinker
in the field. Provocative and encyclopedic, the book covers subjects from
psychic detection, reincarnation and alternative history to vampires,
doppelgangers and Odic forces.” -Google Books. The book to read when you are in
a mood brought on by reading Robert Anton Wilson and William S. Burroughs. It’s
odd; UFOs, magicians, Bigfeet, lake monsters, ghosts, and other such penumbral
phenomena form their own ill-defined genre, not quite a belief system, more of
a suspension-of-disbelief system. Its main function seems to be to evoke doubt,
wonder, and fear.
Ranking: Keeper, almost Essential.
File Code: Supernatural. Reference. Softcover.
Items from the Wish List: Robertson Davies
A Celtic Temperament: Robertson
Davies as Diarist by
Robertson Davies, Jennifer Surridge
Versatile and prolific, Robertson Davies was an actor,
journalist and newspaper publisher, playwright, essayist, founding master of
Massey College at the University of Toronto, and one of Canada’s greatest
novelists. He was also an obsessive, complex, and self-revealing diarist. His
diaries, which he began as a teenager, grew to over 3 million words and are an
astonishing literary legacy. This first published selection of his diaries
spans 1959 to 1963, years in which Davies, in mid-life, experienced both
daunting failure and unexpected success.
Born in Thamesville, Ontario, in 1913, he was educated at local schools, then
Upper Canada College, Queen’s University and Oxford University. He worked in
England at the famous Old Vic theatre as an actor and literary advisor before
returning to Canada where he became the editor and publisher of the Peterborough
Examiner, established himself as a prominent Canadian playwright, and
published his first three novels now known as the Salterton Trilogy.
By 1959, at the age of forty-five, Robertson Davies was already one of Canada’s
leading literary figures. Even so the diaries show that he was frustrated by
the limitations of his literary success, often exasperated with the
distractions of his daily life and buffeted by his mental and emotional state.
They also show that he enjoyed life, was deeply interested in the society he
lived in, and in the people he encountered. More often than not he found comedy
in the world around him and delighted in recording it. He kept not only a daily
journal, but also more focused diaries such as his accounts of the Toronto and
New York production of his play Love and Libel, when he worked
closely with the great British director Tyrone Guthrie, and of the founding of
Massey College, the brainchild of Vincent Massey. The descriptions of backstage
and academic politics are invariably entertaining, but in his diaries Davies
also reveals himself as intensely self-critical, frequently insecure, and with
a highly changeable nature that he described as his “celtic temperament.” We
also see him as a partner in an intensely happy and creative marriage, and as a
man with an astonishing capacity for hard work. By the end of 1963 his life had
taken a new direction. As master of Massey College, he finds himself a
public figure, but he is increasingly preoccupied with a new novel he wants to
write which he is calling Fifth Business.
The publication of A Celtic Temperament establishes Robertson
Davies as one of the great diarists. In their range, variety, intimacy, and honesty
his diaries present an extraordinarily rich portrait of the man and his times. –
Amazon.
The Well-Tempered Critic: One Man's View of Theatre and Letters in Canada by Robertson Davies, Judith Skelton Grant
Feast of Stephen by Stephen Leacock, Robertson Davies
“Do you know the characteristic wine of Madeira?…I do not
know whether Leacock ever drank Madeira himself – he was very much a
Scotch-whisky man – but I enjoy Madeira greatly, and I never drink it without
thinking of Leacock, who was sometimes dry, sometimes sweet, but who always
leaves upon the tongue a hint of brimstone…”
In his witty and illuminating introduction, which takes up the first third of
the book, Robertson Davies invites us to join him in a Feast of
Stephen. Davies’ selection of fifteen pieces from Leacock’s less
familiar works presents the humorist as a true, broad, and sympathetic
interpreter of Canadian life, as a man who may have lacked self-knowledge and
sensitive insight into the feelings of others, but “whose best work was the
outpouring of genius.” All shades of Leacock’s writing are represented here,
from the “brilliant nonsense which made some critics liken him to Lewis
Carroll,” to his occasional attacks of “aggressive Lowbrowism.” Together in all
their diversity, Davies’ selections pay tribute to the gifts of exuberance,
originality, and slightly malicious truth with which Leacock so entertainingly
extends our vision. - Amazon.
Shakespeare's Boy Actors by Robertson Davies
Lafcadio Hearn
Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, By Lafcadio
Hearn.
“Known primarily as an early interpreter of Japanese culture
and customs, the famous writer Lafcadio Hearn also wrote ghost
stories—"delicate, transparent, ghostly sketches"—about his adopted
land. Many of the stories found in Kwaidan, "stories and
studies of strange things," are based on Japanese tales told long ago to
him by his wife; others possibly have a Chinese origin. All have been
re-colored and reshaped by Hearn's inimitable hand. In this collection of
unforgettably haunting stories, Hearn brings together "the meeting of three
ways"—the austere dreams of India, the subtle beauty of Japan and the
relentless science of the Western world.” – Amazon. “Kwaidan ("ghost story"), is a book by Lafcadio Hearn that features several Japanese
ghost stories and
a brief non-fiction study on insects. It was later used as the basis for a
movie called Kwaidan by Masaki Kobayashi in 1964.” – Wikipedia. I resort
to these quotes for the facts because it is hard to pin down the eerie effect
of this book.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Ghost Stories. Softcover.
Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn, by Jonathan
Colt.
“In 1869 a half-blind Greek-Irish teenager named Lafcadio
Hearn came to Cincinnati, Ohio, and by the age of twenty-four became the city's
most famous newspaper reporter on the strength of his lurid crime stories and
bizarre explorations of the city's dark underside. Fired in 1877 for his brief
marriage to a black woman, he wandered from New Orleans to New York to the
Caribbean before finally settling in Japan where, in a unique act of
self-transformation, he became a Japanese patriot and patriarch. Full of
excerpts from Hearn's writing, Jonathan Cott's insightful portrayal of an
extraordinary life recovers for a Western audience a unique figure of the
nineteenth century.” – Amazon. I don’t know what started my recent (by which I
mean in the present century) deep interest in Hearn; I only know that I read
“The Boy Who Drew Cats” at least in middle school, and enjoyed the movie
“Kwaidan” for years. Perhaps it was my growing interest in Japanese culture
(thanks to anime), and he was a sort of gateway, an early translator of the
East to the West. Interest in the tales turned into an interest in the teller,
and his life story is as compelling as any he ever wrote.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Biography. Softcover.
Oriental Stories, by Lafcadio Hearn.
A Wordsworth Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural Edition.
Contains the stories from ‘Kwaidan’, ‘In Ghostly Japan’, and ‘Some Chinese
Ghosts’. Makes my copy of ‘Kwaidan’ obsolete, except for the parts about
insects, which aren’t included here.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Supernatural Stories. Anthology. Softcover.
American Writings, by Lafcadio Hearn.
A Library of America Edition. “A translator of Flaubert and
Gautier, Lafcadio Hearn was the master of a gaudy and sometimes
self-consciously decadent literary style, but he was also a tough-minded and
keenly observant reporter, with an eye for the offbeat, the sensual, and
occasionally the gruesome. The writings of his American years collected in this
Library of America volume—on subjects as wide ranging as comparative folklore,
the history of musical instruments, French literary avant-gardes, and New
Orleans voodoo—reveal an omnivorous curiosity and an always eclectic
sensibility.” – Google Books. My interest in the writings in this book go in
and out; perhaps I find his journalism and letters more compelling than his
fictions in this volume. Just a taste of the supernatural here, but plenty of
the macabre.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Collected Writings for a Period of the Author’s
Life. Hardback.
The Selected Writings of Lafcadio Hearn, Edited by Henry
Goodman.
A whopping selection in a big fat block of a book which makes
it hard to hold, and therefore access as a browser, which by its nature it
ought to be. Still, it covers pretty much every aspect and phase of Hearn’s
writing, and that is a great good thing. Hearn is one of those writers that I
urge everyone to read, sometimes forgetting how hard it was for me to
find the doorway in, so aware am I of the rewards of the effort.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Selected Writings. Softcover.
Items from the Wish List: T. H. White
The Age of Scandal: An
Excursion Through a Minor Period by
T. H. White
This amusing foray into
eighteenth-century literature is an entertaining tabloid biography of an age
not unlike our own; men and women of fashion led their lives under the avid
scrutiny of a public who had a sharp appetite for scandal and sensation. In the
period between the so-called Age of Reason and the Romantic Revival ... that
which the author calls the Age of Scandal ... aristocratic and privileged
eccentrics flourished and the professional writer declined. Here we meet
notorious persons such as the Marquis de Sade; the Duke of Queensberry; who
dislocated London's milk supply; and the countess of Kingston, who journeyed to
Rome in the hope of seducing the Pope. There are also lesser figures like the
Misses Gunning, who were so beautiful that seven hundred people sat up all
night to see them leave an inn. T.H. White contends that these cultivated and
fortunate individuals, best represented by Horace Walpole, were Elizabethan in
their natures, without the formality of Alexander Pope or the exaggerated raptures
of William Wordsworth. - Amazon
THE SCANDAL-MONGER by T.H.
White
From his further explorations of the Age of
Scandal, T. H. White has returned with some remarkable specimens. The
eccentrics among them are hardly more conspicuous than the men and women who,
at this distance, seem representative of the eighteenth century. They had no,
or few, inhibitions. At work or play, in debt or in love, they expended a
vitality which we should find it hard to match. Mr. White exhibits them at
their best and their worst. His subjects include Duels, Dogs, Public
Executions, Blue Stockings, Bribery and Corruption; his personages Horace
Walpole, George Selwyn, Beau Brummel, the Chevalier d’Eon, Fanny Burney, Mary
Shelley, Mrs. Thrale . . .
If White's earlier book could be described as a "chronicle of humorous and
shocking scandal" (John Betjeman) what shall be said of this continuation
of it? What can be said — except that it will not disappoint those many readers
who relished the flavour of The Age of Scandal. – GoodReads.
Darkness at
Pemberley by T. H. White
Darkness at Pemberly was
first published in England in 1932, at which time it received excellent
reviews. It successfully combined two important story trends of the period: an
intellectual puzzle (one of the more ingenious locked-room puzzles of the
decade) and an action plot that any of the major mystery story writers of the
day would have been proud of. – Amazon.
America At Last: The American Journal Of T. H. White by T. H.
White, David Garnett
Introduction by David Garnett. His last book, a journal written during his American transcontinental lecture tour. – Amazon.
Friday, October 2, 2020
Teachers and Loved Ones of CSL
George MacDonald: 365 Readings, Edited and with a Preface by
C. S. Lewis.
Really belongs with the George MacDonald books, but has
Lewis’s name plastered all over the front. Maybe I’ll move it over with the others. A Collier
book.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Daily Readings. Selections. Softcover.
Diary of an Old Soul, by George MacDonald.
“A Book of Strife in the Form of a Diary of an Old Soul.” A
book of poems that can be read as a daily devotional (there are verses for each
day of the year). In these poems MacDonald struggles, not always so much as to
have faith as to find the proper way to work out that faith in life and in his
soul. If that sounds sappy, it is, in the old sense of the word: full of sap,
full of life. It is a stern fight, a fight not to the death but to the life. It
reminds you that MacDonald was not only a writer, but a minister. A book
beloved by C. S. Lewis. This copy is getting some age spots.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Poetry. Religion. Softcover.
The Splendid Century, by W.(arren) H.(amilton) Lewis.
“Life in the France of Louis XIV” (that’s the Fourteenth).
Dedicated “To My Brother” (that’s C. S. Lewis). It is easy for me to forget
sometimes that Warnie was not just Jack Lewis’s amusing and fatter alcoholic brother.
He was a scholar in his own right, though he never took a degree; as an enthusiast
he wrote a whole series of books on 17th Century France that were
well-received. “Pleasures and palaces are, of course, an enormously entertaining
part of this vivid account of France under Louis XIV. More important is the
author's exploration of the political, economic, social and artistic forces
that developed during the long reign of the Sun-King. It was an age of
contradictions and compromises and high taxes and formal manners. And to the
day he died Louis XIV ate with his fingers and acted like God. The opening
account of Louis XIV's private life and loves sets the pace for this witty,
provocative account of a century that, like our own, was a time of transition,
dissatisfaction, and progress. This was the age of Moliere, Racine,
Corneille...the age of the salons and the graceful correspondents. And also an
age that sent thousands of Huguenots to the galleys, the notorious death ships
that served as seventeenth-century concentration camps.” – Amazon. His other
books on France (which I would like to get – I am not that interested in
France, but he is that entertaining a writer) are “The Sunset of the Splendid
Century”, “Assault on Olympus”, “Louis XIV: An Informal Portrait”, “The
Scandalous Regent”, “Levantine Adventurer”, and “Memoirs of the Duc de
Saint-Simon”. Insert of period illustrations; this second-hand copy is a little
creased at the spine, and the only copy of Warnie’s works that I’ve ever found
‘in real life’.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: History. 17th Century France.
Softcover.
Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry, by Owen
Barfield.
“A book by British philosopher Owen Barfield, is concerned with physics, the
evolution of consciousness, pre-history, ancient Greece, ancient Israel, the
medieval period, the scientific revolution, Christianity, Romanticism, and much else. The book was
Barfield's favorite of those he authored, and the one that he most wanted to
continue to be read. The book explores approximately three thousand years of
history — particularly the history of human consciousness in relation to that
which precedes or underlies the world of perception or phenomena. Given the
vast field considered by the book, it is concise and brief, about two hundred
pages. Barfield describes the growth of human consciousness as an interaction
with nature, leading the reader to a fresh understanding of man's history,
circumstances, and destiny. Saving the Appearances has in
common with some thoughts of Teilhard
de Chardin the
understanding of idols as appearances having nothing within. "[A] representation,
which is collectively mistaken for an ultimate – ought not to be called a
representation. It is an idol. Thus the phenomena themselves are
idols, when they are imagined as enjoying that independence of human perception
which can in fact only pertain to the unrepresented.” – Wikipedia. I found the
arguments “interesting, but tough.” Barfield, whom C. S. Lewis called “the wisest
and best of my unofficial teachers”, was an Anthroposophist of the Steiner
School. Barfield has been called “The Last of the Inklings”, having passed away
only in 1997. This second-hand copy is showing its age as well.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Consciousness. Philosophy of Science. Softcover.
History in English Words, by Owen Barfield. Foreword by W. H.
Auden.
“This popular book provides a brief, brilliant history of
those who have spoken the Indo-European tongues. It is illustrated throughout
by current English words—whose derivation from other languages, whose history
in use and changes of meaning—record and unlock the larger history. "In
our language alone, not to speak of its many companions, the past history of
humanity is spread out in an imperishable map, just as the history of the
mineral earth lies embedded in the layers of its outer crust.... Language has
preserved for us the inner, living history of our soul. It reveals the
evolution of consciousness" (Owen Barfield). It was Barfield
who first advanced the ideas about language, myth, and belief that became
identified with the thought and art of the Inklings.” – Goodreads. A
fascinating study of how and when certain types of words entered our language,
and how they allowed new concepts to enter our minds. You can’t think about
something, really, until you have a word for it and define that word. I really
must get a copy of “Poetic Diction”, Barfield’s other most famous book.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Language. Meaning. Softcover.
A Barfield Reader: Selections from the Writings of Owen
Barfield, Edited and with an Introduction by G. B. Tennyson.
A sampler from Barfield’s works on language and literature,
on philosophy and meaning, and from his own fiction. This book is dense, dense
in the sense of packed like a fruitcake, and dense in the sense of the daunting
blocks of print on each page. I have sampled it and found it too rich for
wholesale immediate consumption; I must take it a slice at a time. In the
meantime, it is the closest I can get to certain of the man’s works.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Reader. Sampler. Softcover.
The Silver Trumpet, by Owen Barfield.
Edited with an Afterword by Marjorie Lamp Mead. Illustrated
by Josephine Spence. I can’t say much for the illustrations, though apparently
Barfield chose the artist himself (from his friend’s children). To me, they
look like something scratched into a high school notebook. I can’t say I’ve
read it: the print is terrible, the size of the book is awkward, and the
binding makes it hard to hold open for fear of it cracking. I must try to read
it someday, nevertheless. Apparently, Lewis and Tolkien had high opinions of it
(at least Tolkien’s children did). “In this delightful fantasy of kings and
queens, a magical Silver Trumpet, a jester dwarf, and castle intrigues, English
author Owen Barfield has created an enduring tale to captivate the imaginations
of all readers. This beautifully illustrated edition of The Silver
Trumpet, a story which first appeared in print in 1925, contains a helpful
biographical note on Barfield by Marjorie Lamp Mead.” – Goodreads. The first
fantasy novel ever published by an Inkling, and Barfield’s only piece of
fiction.
Ranking: Essential, I suppose.
File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Softcover.
Smoke on the Mountain, by Joy Davidman. Foreword by C. S.
Lewis.
“An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments”. “Lacking belief
in the promises and commandments of God, one must fall back on a
"man-centred" philosophy--something called humanism or materialism,
which accepts this life and its immediate desires as the basis of all conduct.
But you can't get a moral law out of materialism. There is no logical reason
why a materialist shouldn't poison his nagging wife, if he can get away with it.
The essential amorality of all atheist doctrines is often hidden from us by an
irrelevant personal argument. We see that many articulate secularists are
well-meaning and law-abiding men; we see them go into righteous indignation
over injustice and often devote their lives to good works. So we conclude that
"he can't be wrong whose life is in the right"--that their
philosophies are just as good guides to action as Christianity. What we don't
see is that they are not acting on their philosophies. They are acting, out of
habit or sentiment, on an inherited Christian ethic which they still take for
granted though they have rejected the creed from which it sprang. Their
children will inherit somewhat less of it.” So good I quoted it three times on
Power of Babel. A look in turn at each commandment and finding surprising
applications for them in modern life, beyond the plainest barest sense (who
today covets their neighbor’s ox?). Lewis called Davidman’s intellect “straight,
bright, and tempered like a sword”; here I see a demonstration of that.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Religion. Softcover.
Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman, Edited by Don W.
King.
“Although best known as Lewis's wife, Joy Davidman was an
accomplished writer in her own right, with several published works to her credit. Out
of My Bone tells Davidman's life story in her own words through her
numerous letters -- most never published before -- and her autobiographical
essay "The Longest Way Round." Gathered and expertly introduced by
Don W. King, these letters reveal Davidman's persistent search for truth, her
curious, incisive mind ("lithe and quick and muscular as a leopard,"
Lewis later said), and her arresting, sharply penetrating voice. They chronicle
her journey from secular Judaism to atheism to Communism to Christianity and
offer insightful glimpses into life -- both literary and everyday -- in the
America and England of her time. Davidman also writes about the struggles of
her earlier marriage to William Lindsay Gresham and of trying to reconcile her
career goals with her life as mother of two sons. Most poignantly, perhaps,
these letters expose Davidman's mental, emotional, and spiritual state as she
confronted the cancer that eventually took her life at age 45.” – Amazon. Joy
Davidman enters the Lewis story as someone whom most people saw as intruding on
their image of what they saw him as being: basically, a crusty old bachelor
uncle. They didn’t want to think of him as having emotions and needs
(especially at his age), or to think of him as being taken advantage of by some
predatory woman on the make. But the more one learns of her the more you can
see what he saw in her; he was, after all, no fool. Even the suspicious Warnie,
smarting after the years of ‘domestic tyranny’ under Mrs. Moore, came to
appreciate her. “Incredibly, Dr. Johnson seems to have actually loved his
wife.”
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Letters. Biography. Hardback.
C. S. Lewis: The Rest So Far
The Inspirational Writings of C. S. Lewis: Surprised by Joy,
Reflections on the Psalms, The Four Loves, and the Business of Heaven, by C. S.
Lewis.
All in one handy-dandy volume. I used to have a softcover of
‘The Business of Heaven’ in a Collier edition (it is a 365 day Readings for the
Year type collection from all his work), but I sold it because I have this.
Gilt edging on the pages.
Ranking: Essential, I guess.
File Code: Omnibus. Inspirational. Hardback.
Companion to Narnia: A Complete Guide to the Themes,
Characters, and Events of C. S. Lewis’s Enchanting Imaginary World, by Paul F.
Ford. Foreword by Madeleine L’Engle. Illustrated by Lorinda Bryan Cauley. Cover
by David San Souci.
A guide, and what a guide. Gathers stuff not only in the
Chronicles, but every mention of Narnia anywhere by Lewis (such as in “Past
Watchful Dragons”).
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Literature. Reference. Softcover.
Tales Before Narnia: The Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science
Fiction, Edited and with commentary by Douglas A. Anderson.
“Classic Stories that Inspired C. S. Lewis”. A Del Rey book.
Anthology of tales that Lewis has mentioned were part of his reading or
influenced his work, as well as works by his friends like Tolkien or Barfield.
Tracks down and traps into one handy book sources I’ve heard mentioned dozens
of times.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Anthology. Short Stories. Poems. Softcover.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe The Official Illustrated Movie Companion, by Perry Moore, and The
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian The Official Illustrated Movie Companion,
by Ernie Malik.
Heavily illustrated from the movies and their production art
and behind-the-scenes photos, these visual companions delve into the making of
the films and the people behind them.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Motion Picture. Production. Softcovers.
The Crafting of Narnia: The Art, Creatures, and Weapons from
WETA Workshop. WETA Workshop.
Concept designs, pre-production art, clear photos of the
finished models, costumes, and make-ups from the first two Narnia films,
brought to you by the same special effects house that brought you “The Lord of
the Rings” movies.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Costuming. Movie Design. Hardback.
C. S. Lewis’s Case for the Christian Faith, by Richard L.
Purtill.
A sort of precis and summation of Lewis’s theological
arguments. Can’t say I’ve read it.
Ranking: Keeper?
File Code: Theology. Softcover.
The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate
God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life, by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr.
“Throughout the ages, many of the world's greatest thinkers
have wrestled with the concept of -- and belief in -- God. It may seem unlikely
that any new arguments or insights could be raised, but the twentieth century
managed to produce two brilliant men with two diametrically opposed views about
the question of God: Sigmund Freud and C. S. Lewis. They never had an actual
meeting, but in The Question of God, their arguments are
placed side by side for the very first time.
For more than twenty-five years, Armand Nicholi has taught a course at Harvard
that compares the philosophical arguments of both men. In The Question
of God, Dr. Nicholi presents the writings and letters of Lewis and
Freud, allowing them to "speak" for themselves on the subject of
belief and disbelief. Both men considered the problem of pain and suffering,
the nature of love and sex, and the ultimate meaning of life and death -- and
each of them thought carefully about the alternatives to their positions.
The inspiration for the PBS series of the same name, The Question of
God does not presuppose which man -- Freud the devout atheist or Lewis
the atheist-turned-believer -- is correct in his views. Rather, readers are
urged to join Nicholi and his students and decide for themselves which path to
follow.” – Amazon.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Philosophy. Softcover.
Reading the Classics with C. S. Lewis, Edited by Thomas L.
Martin.
“A Guide to Literature. Reading the Classics with C. S. Lewis
offers an in-depth look at Lewis's great love for literature and his monumental
work as a literary critic. With chapters devoted to various genres and the
major periods of English literature, this collection leads readers to a
stronger appreciation of literature and a deeper understanding of Lewis as a
teacher.” – Amazon. Includes chapters by the rather perfunctory Colin Manlove,
and, once more, Colin Duriez.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Literary Criticism. Softcover.
C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church, by Joseph Pearce.
Ignatius Press. We’ll be hearing a lot more about Pearce
later on. “C. S. Lewis, the great British novelist and Christian apologist, has
been credited by many-including the author-for aiding their journey to the
Catholic Church. For this reason, it is often perplexing that Lewis himself
never became Catholic. Joseph Pearce delves into Lewis's life, writings, and
spiritual influences to shed light on the matter. Although C. S. Lewis's
conversion to Christianity was greatly influenced by J. R. R. Tolkien, a
Catholic, and although Lewis embraced many distinctively Catholic teachings,
such as purgatory and the sacrament of Confession, he never formally entered
the Church. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this book digs
deep to present the facts of Lewis's life, to illuminate key points in his
writings, and to ask the question: Was C. S. Lewis on the path to Rome? This
revised and updated edition-with a new introduction by Father Dwight
Longenecker-is a fascinating historical, biographical, theological, and
literary account of a man whose writings have led scores to the Catholic
Church, despite never having become a Catholic himself.” – Google Books.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Biography. Religion. Softcover.
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