In October 2018 I began another adventure in reading—as close to consecutively as was reasonable—all the works we own by or about a particular author. Previous authors have included the highbrow, the lowbrow, and the in-between: William Shakespeare (plays only, read or viewed), George MacDonald, J. R. R. Tolkien, Miss Read (Dora Jesse Saint), and all the Rick Brant Science-Adventure series of John Blaine (Harold L. Goodwin). This time I tackled C. S. Lewis, the number of whose books on our shelves is exceeded only by George MacDonald's. I concluded the project 21 months later, in July 2020. Needless to say there were a lot of non-Lewis books interspersed with these. Even C. S. Lewis is none the worse for a break.
Here's the whole list, in the order in which I completed them. The links are to my own posts about the books.
Ratings Guide: 0 to 5 ★s reflects how much I liked it (worst to best); 0 to 3 ☢s represents a content advisory (mildest to strongest). I make no claim to consistency, as I couldn't keep the ratings from being affected by both my mood at the time of reading and what I had read before.
- C. S. Lewis: Images of His World, by James Riordan and Pauline Baynes ★★★
- C. S. Lewis: A Biography ★★★
- Spirits in Bondage ★★
- The Pilgrim's Regress ★★★
- Space Trilogy 1: Out of the Silent Planet ★★★★★
- The Problem of Pain ★★★★★
- The Dark Tower and Other Stories, edited by Walter Hooper ★★ ☢
- Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, by Michael Ward ★★★★★
- Poems ★★★★
- Preface to Paradise Lost ★★★
- The Screwtape Letters ★★★★★
- Space Trilogy 2: Perelandra ★★★★★
- The Abolition of Man ★★★★★
- The Weight of Glory ★★★★★
- Space Trilogy 3: That Hideous Strength ★★★★
- The Great Divorce ★★★★★
- Miracles ★★★★★
- Mere Christianity ★★★★★
- On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature ★★★★★
- Past Watchful Dragons, by Walter Hooper ★★★
- C. S. Lewis on Scripture, by Michael J. Christensen ★★★
- A Book of Narnians: The Lion, the Witch, and the Others, by James Riordan and Pauline Baynes ★★★
- The Chronicles of Narnia 1: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe ★★★★★
- The Chronicles of Narnia 2: Prince Caspian ★★★★★
- The Chronicles of Narnia 3: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ★★★★★
- The Chronicles of Narnia 4: The Silver Chair ★★★★★
- The Chronicles of Narnia 5: The Horse and His Boy ★★★★★
- The Chronicles of Narnia 6: The Magician's Nephew ★★★★★
- The Chronicles of Narnia 7: The Last Battle ★★★★★
- Smoke on the Mountain, by Joy Davidman (not by or about Lewis, but it seemed appropriate, as she was his wife) ★★★
- Surprised by Joy ★★★★
- Till We Have Faces ★★★★
- The Business of Heaven, edited by Walter Hooper ★★★
- Reflections on the Psalms ★★★★★
- Studies in Words ★★★★★
- The Four Loves ★★★★
- The World's Last Night ★★★★★
- A Grief Observed ★★★★
- An Experiment in Criticism ★★★
- Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer ★★★★
- Letters to Children ★★★★
- C. S. Lewis: A Companion & Guide, by Walter Hooper ★★★★
- The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (by Lewis, edited by Walter Hooper) ★★★★
- Christian Reflections ★★★★
- Letters to an American Lady ★★★
- Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories ★★★
- God in the Dock ★★★★★
- Surprised By Laughter: The Comic World of C. S. Lewis, by Terry Lindvall ★★
- G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis: The Riddle of Joy, edited by Michael H. Macdonald and Andrew A. Tadie ★★★
- The Quotable Lewis, edited by Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root ★★★★
Was this adventure worthwhile? Absolutely. Once again I found it interesting to follow an author's development over time. My reading left me with a strong desire to see what he would have written about our own times—if he could have survived the shock of seeing the fruit, 60+ years later, of the negative social trends that disturbed him in their beginnings.
A few of Lewis's writings are hindered by some of the examples he uses, which were aimed at a British audience of a long time ago, but that happens surprisingly rarely. Timeless truths about the human condition never get out of date.
