About this title: C.S. Lewis documents his search for joy, starting with his childhood in Belfast, through a period of atheism, and then back to Christianity through a course of rational thought. This book was initially published in 1955.
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Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Harvest Books
Date Published: 1966
ISBN-13:9780156870115ISBN:0156870118
Description: A good reading copy only. Previous owners name inscribed inside front. Book has tanning or browning due to normal aging process. -, Trade PaperBack, Good / read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Acceptable. Former Library book. Book has some water damage, but book is still completely readable. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harvest Books
Date Published: 1966-03-23
ISBN-13:9780156870115ISBN:0156870118
Description: Like New. May be shiny, in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, no damage to binding, may have a remainder mark. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harvest Books
Date Published: 1966-03-23
ISBN-13:9780156870115ISBN:0156870118
Description: Very good. Very minimal damage to the cover (no holes or tears, only minimal scuff marks), in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, minimal to no highlighting/under. read more
Description: Good. 1966-Paperback----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Walker & Co
Date Published: 1986-03
ISBN-13:9780802725363ISBN:0802725368
Description: Good. Large print. Ex-library copy with usual markings and attachments. Text is clean, bright and unmarked. Binding is tight and square. Has some light edge and corner wear. Light creasing in cover. Pages slightly curled on edges. We recommend EXPEDITED MAIL for even faster delivery! read more
"This book is of great interest if you care about the life of C.S. Lewis. If you don't, I would probably skip it. What few "gems" there are in the book can be summed up rather quickly in a few quotes. What you don't get, if you decide to go that route, is the feeling that you're actually conversing with Lewis himself. That is probably the best part of the whole deal.
Bits I found shocking? His descriptions of public school (yikes!) and the war (more in that it didn't really seem to affect him at all). If you're looking for the story of his conversion, it's here, but really, the story centers on his pre-conversion life."
"I'm only half way through this book. I am enjoying reading it, but I'm not completely following it. I haven't read the classics and so I'm lost when he relates life to them, and I don't understand the British vernacular. So there are whole sections where I'm lost - haven't a clue what those pages are saying. They might as well be written in Greek. And another part where he writes of his experience in the English public school system fills me with terror as to the perversity / evil in this world, especially because I have two little boys. I'm thankful that I just finished reading C.S. Lewis' letters to a lady who wrote to him and to whom he wrote back because he felt that it was his duty to answer the letters he received. Because he was kind and gentle in his letters. I'll update this when I have finished this book. I think that the second half will be brighter because it will be a history of his life in a relationship with Jesus.
Now I am almost finished with this book. I think it is interesting where he is talking about how we are all created by God (he thinks of God as only a Spirit at this point) and how to prefer our own happiness to our neighbor's is like thinking that the closest telephone pole is really the largest.
Esther, I thought of you where he writes "I had been far more anxious to avoid suffering than to achieve delight. I had always aimed at limited liabilities." :) And of myself also. An acquaintance of mine on fb posted the quote (attributed to Mark Twain) about at one's deathbed one will be more upset about the things one did not do rather than those things one did do. And I am not made in that way. I know that when I look back 20 years I am more upset by the wrong I have done (especially towards others). I'm not much upset by the great things (even great good) that I have not done.
My last comment - This book is worth reading if only for the very last page. "But what, in conclusion, of Joy? for that, after all, is what the story has mainly been about. To tell you the truth, the subject has lost nearly all interest for me since I became a Christian. I cannot, indeed, complain, like Wordsworth, that the visionary gleam has passed away. I believe (if the thing were at all worth recording) that the old stab, the old bittersweet, has come to me as often and as sharply since my conversion as at any time of my life whatever. But I now know that the experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the kind of importance I once gave it. It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer naturally loomed large in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods the sight of a signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries, "Look!" The whole party gathers round and stares. But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. 'We would be at Jerusalem.' Not, of course, that I don't often catch myself stopping to stare at roadside objects of even less importance.""
"So I've now read this book twice, and liked it both times, although probably more the first time. So I'd say it really has a 3.5 rating. I really liked reading about how CS Lewis examined his childhood, and I loved reading about the different things that gave him a "stab of Joy", especially the books. Now I want to read the books/poems that he read.
He used a lot of words and phrases that I didn't understand, but this one I did, and it was one of my favourite thoughts: "Even if my own philosophy were true, how could the initiative lie on my side? My own analogy, as I now first perceived it, suggested the opposite: if Shakespeare and Hamlet could ever meet, it must be Shakespeare's doing. Hamlet could initiate nothing...Shakespeare could, in principal, make himself appear as Author within the play, and write a dialogue between Hamlet and himself. The "Shakespeare" within the play would of course be at once Shakespeare and one of Shakespeare's creatures. It would bear some analogy to the Incarnation.""
"I really enjoyed reading this book. I've owned it for years, a book I inherited from my dad's bookshelf. I've always had the desire in the back of my mind to read it, have leant it out a few times, but still hadn't read it myself. There's always that other book. Well I lent it out again recently and when I got it back I left it on my night stand (the infamous pile that grows and shrinks and holds no book in any particular order to be read)rather than put it on the bookshelf. I think CS Lewis had a great way of thinking and writing. His ability to express thoughts and fellings were incredible. I found myself reading parts out loud to Philip quite often. I've had moments outside of reading, during conversations with friends or just a quiet observations when his words have come back and I think, "Oh ya, that's what he was talking about". There are no heirs, no pretenses in his writing, but he is who he is. Being such an educated man, and this being a book about the things that influenced him in his journey from Christianity to Atheism back to Christianity, he uses a lot of literary references that I'm not familiar with. So the meaning was a little lost on me even though he painted the picture of where it took him."
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