Reviewer Conny Withay:Operating her own business in office management since 1991, Conny is an avid reader and volunteers with the elderly playing her designed The Write Word Game. A cum laude graduate with a degree in art living in the Pacific Northwest, she is married with two sons, two daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren.
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Author: Alister McGrath
Publisher: Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 978-1-4143-8378-1
“So where should we
start? There’s little doubt where Lewis would like us to begin –
his discover of Christianity, which quickly became the moral and
intellectual compass of his world,” Alister McGrath states in the
introduction of his book, If I Had Lunch with C.S. Lewis:
Exploring the Ideas of C.S. Lewis on the Meaning of Life.
At
two hundred and fifty-six pages, this small hardbound book targets
those who love to read about one of the best-known writers, Clive
Staples Lewis. After a preface, there are eight chapters, followed by
acknowledgements, two appendices, notes, and the author’s
biography.
McGrath, a Christian theologian and professor in England, has spent over forty years reading and studying C.S. Lewis. Approaching the iconic man’s writings from the perspective of a teacher, the author divides the book into eight sections, as if Lewis was having lunch with the reader, discussing a specific topic.
Chapter themes range from the meaning of life, friendships, the importance of stories, Christian life, apologetics, education, dealing with pain, and the hope of heaven. Each section reviews Lewis’s works related to the topic, including how he perceived the world, those around him, and his relationship to God.
Not only dissected are the cherished author’s processes and meanings behind his published works, the biographical backgrounds, common man struggles, and realization of God’s hand gently guiding him are given.
Learning that Lewis’s mother died when he was ten years old, that he was an angry atheist in the British army in World War I, and that his wife passed away from cancer early from in their marriage, readers can immediately connect why his writings were filled with compassion, sorrow, and redemption.
As McGrath exposes the thought process behind Lewis’s famed books such as The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Four Loves, Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, and Surprised by Joy, barely mentioned are favorites such as The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce.
Although unexpected, this well-written read is not formatted as a casual conversation of Lewis sitting across the lunch table discussing life’s questions and dilemmas. It is more of an in-depth textbook that would make an excellent eight-week semester class study on the viewpoints and Christian beliefs of this twentieth century writer.
Thanks to Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. for furnishing this book in exchange for a review of the reader’s honest opinion.