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    The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes
    The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes
    The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes
    Audiobook2 hours

    The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes

    Written by C. S. Lewis

    Narrated by John Lee

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The revered teacher and bestselling author reflects on the power, importance, and joy of a life dedicated to reading books in this delightful collection drawn from his wide body of writings.

    More than fifty years after his death, revered intellectual and teacher C. S. Lewis continues to speak to readers, thanks not only to his intellectual insights on Christianity but also his wondrous creative works and deep reflections on the literature that influenced his life. Beloved for his instructive novels including The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, and The Chronicles of Narnia as well as his philosophical books that explored theology and Christian life, Lewis was a life-long writer and book lover.

    Cultivated from his many essays, articles, and letters, as well as his classic works, The Reading Life provides guidance and reflections on the love and enjoyment of books. Engaging and enlightening, this well-rounded collection includes Lewis’ reflections on science fiction, why children’s literature is for readers of all ages, and why we should read two old books for every new one.

    A window into the thoughts of one of the greatest public intellectuals of our time, this collection reveals not only why Lewis loved the written word, but what it means to learn through literature from one of our wisest and most enduring teachers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateOct 15, 2019
    ISBN9780062933058
    Author

    C. S. Lewis

    Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954, when he was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and have been transformed into three major motion pictures. Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) fue uno de los intelectuales más importantes del siglo veinte y podría decirse que fue el escritor cristiano más influyente de su tiempo. Fue profesor particular de literatura inglesa y miembro de la junta de gobierno en la Universidad Oxford hasta 1954, cuando fue nombrado profesor de literatura medieval y renacentista en la Universidad Cambridge, cargo que desempeñó hasta que se jubiló. Sus contribuciones a la crítica literaria, literatura infantil, literatura fantástica y teología popular le trajeron fama y aclamación a nivel internacional. C. S. Lewis escribió más de treinta libros, lo cual le permitió alcanzar una enorme audiencia, y sus obras aún atraen a miles de nuevos lectores cada año. Sus más distinguidas y populares obras incluyen Las Crónicas de Narnia, Los Cuatro Amores, Cartas del Diablo a Su Sobrino y Mero Cristianismo.

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    Reviews for The Reading Life

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    • 5/5
      Interesting to hear his take on writing and most especially reading. I have spent most of my adult reading life in non-fiction. Dr. Lewis has encouraged me to explore more fiction.
    • 5/5
      Loved it. I’m a huge Lewis groupie. Sans the sexual stuff ?
    • 3/5
      The Reading Life by C.S. Lewis was well narrated by John Lee, but I don't think it fulfilled its promise.
    • 5/5
      “We seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves.” — C.S. Lewis, “An Experiment in Criticism”C.S. Lewis read for his profession (he taught literature at Oxford and later Cambridge), for pleasure and also, as suggested by the above quotation, for the enlargement of his being. Then he wrote many books that enlarged the being of his many, many readers.In the books he wrote he had much to say about the books he read and about reading in general, and now much of what he said on the subject has been compiled into a single book, “The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes.”Lewis loved Jane Austen ("I've been reading “Pride and Prejudice” on and off all my life and it doesn't wear out a bit.") and “War and Peace” ("It has completely changed my view of novels."), but “The Three Musketeers” not so much ("I don't think there is a single passage to show that Dumas had even seen a cloud, a road, or a tree.") He wondered how Mark Twain could write “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” yet nothing else that was nearly as good.He has much to say about fairy tales and about children's literature in general, and of course his own Narnia stories became children's classics. He once argued: "I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story." As someone who did not read those Narnia stories until I was an adult, I am almost inclined to agree with him.For parents, teachers or others who worry about the unworthiness of the books children read, Lewis offers this sensible advice: "Those who have greatly cared for any book whatever may possibly come to care, some day, for good books." Those discouraged from reading "bad" books may stop reading altogether.And those who don't read, Lewis writes elsewhere, inhabit "a tiny world."
    • 5/5
      *E-ARC received from Edelweiss/Above the Treeline in exchange for an honest review. No money or other goods were exchanged, and all views are my own.*This short book includes excerpts of C.S. Lewis's thoughts on reading from his various published works, letters, and introductions.Collections like this one, that draw on an author's writing on a subject and necessarily, in some cases, divorce a thought from its larger context can be hard to pull off well. The Reading Life by C.S. Lewis, however, does it well and in some cases brings passages that came from different published works but were about a similar topic (such as George MacDonald's Phantastes) together to even give the reader a fuller understanding of Lewis's thoughts on certain subjects or books. I spent a delightful couple of hours reading through and discovering which authors Lewis loved and which he never would, his reviews of Tolkien's books, and more. Recommended for fans of C.S. Lewis and bibliophiles alike.