Books

My Top 5 Books on C.S. Lewis

Picks from Michael Ward, author of ‘Planet Narnia.’

C.S. Lewis: A Complete Guide to His Life & Works by Walter Hooper (HarperOne)

This volume contains a brief biography, full of fact and only necessary comment. It also includes summaries of Lewis’s main works, sections on key ideas and people, and a comprehensive list of all Lewis’s writings.

Owen Barfield on C.S. Lewis: by Owen Barfield, ED. G. B. Tennyson (The Barfield Press)

This book offers thought-provoking insights from the man Lewis described as the “wisest and best of my unofficial teachers.”

C.S. Lewis: A Biography by Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper (HarperCollins Entertainment)

Green and Hooper’s reliable account is the first “official” biography and is in many ways the best, especially now that it has been updated.

Remembering C.S. Lewis: Recollections of Those Who Knew Himby ED. James T. Como (Ignatius Press)

This collection—which contains 24 snapshots of Lewis from friends, colleagues, and students—is full of color, humor, and human interest.

The Cambridge: Companion to C.S. Lewis by EDs. Robert MacSwain and Michael Ward (Cambridge University Press

The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis Cambridge Companion compiles 21 scholarly but accessible discussions of Lewis’s works by theology and literature professors from the United Kingdom and North America.

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Related Elsewhere:

Michael Ward is the author of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis (Oxford University Press, 2008) and of The Narnia Code (Tyndale, 2010), available from ChristianBook.com and other retailers.

C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide to his Life and Works, Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis, C. S. Lewis: A Biography, Remembering C. S. Lewis, The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis, and many, many other books with the name “C.S. Lewis” in the title are available from Amazon.com and other retailers.

See CT’s special section on C.S. Lewis.

Read CT entertainment editor Mark Moring’s interview with actor Will Poulter, who plays Eustace in the new film based on Lewis’ novel The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. CT’s review of the new movie was posted here. Moring also blogged for CT recently on some controversial comments about the spirituality of Narnia by cast member Liam Neeson, who voices the lion Aslan.

Previous Top 5 lists have featured the historical Jesus, family ministry, the problem of evil, biographies of theologians, orphans, prayer, doubt, community, sports, parenting, Advent, life ethics, emerging movement, Islam, loss, Calvin, spiritual memoirs, neglected doctrines, spiritual memoirs, marriage, Lent, fiction books for the soul, managing your money, devotionals, how character shapes belief, food, atheism, China, presidents, world Christianity, ancient-future faith, the civil rights era, social justice, church history, popular culture, the Civil War, apologetics, atheism, and sex.

Christianity Today has more music, movies, books, and other media reviews.

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