A good book that puts into allegorical form how we perceive our life here on earth from a perspective that is not God's. A good way of putting our perspectives into a form that we can easily recognize and hopefully move towards God's perspective.

Some of the strangest stories I 've read and I read a lot. Does make one think.

Really enough cannot be said about this book. It is a compilation of three other 'works', each of which contain numerous topics, or (one could say) 'works' in themselves. Lewis writes on a myriad of subjects, ranging from extremely controversial topics such as captial punishment, to perhaps less considered topics, like Christianity and Culture. Lewis has a remarkable way of making crucial points, even in topics you would not normally consider to be very important.

The writing is Lewis, so, of course, it is chalk full of wit, metaphor, and complex ideas. Many of the presented works are not overly long (they were written to be read as lectures), and so Lewis wastes no time in getting to his point. This is important to the reader who wants to get to the points Lewis is making - the meat of his arguments - as quickly as possible. Since the book is over 500 pages, reticence is one of Lewis's virtues (in this book). Another thing I found interesting was that, in a section of the book (towards the end especially, but also peppered throughout), there are rebutals and replies from Lewis's critics. This was a unique way in which to examine how Lewis responded, and it also showed Lewis, like all apologists, had his share of dissenters.

Personally, I like Lewis. I like his writing style, and, as far as I 'know' him, I like him as a man. Prior to reading this I had read his 'Signature Classics', which can be looked up on amazon, if one desires to know its composition. I found very little overlap in thought; though there invitably must be SOME, if we are supposing Lewis really believes in the ideas he argues.

If you are interested in diving into some of Lewis's deepest, most challenging (and therefore most rewarding) thoughts, I think you would like this book.

The first part, a Pilgrim's Regress is a critique on many modern philosophies. Overall it's quite well written, with only a few parts that are so transparent as to leave your intelligence feeling a tad insulted. The other two thirds of this tome is a collection of Lewis' writings from several sources, correspondence, essays, transcripts from radio talks etc. A few of them are dry, but many of them are excellent. It's remarkable that the very same issues which we in the Catholic Church today are facing, are being discussed by this Anglican a century earlier. Women's ordination, the secularization of Christmas, etc. Why are we so incapable of learning from the mistakes of others?! A few quotes worth sharing:

from "Priestesses in the Church:
"The Church claims to be the bearer of a revelatio. If that claim is false then we want not to make priestesses but to abolish priests. if it is true, then we should expct to find in the Church an element which unbelievers will call irrational and which believers will call suprarational...If we retain only what can be justified by standards of prudence and convenience at the bar of enlightened common sense, then we exchange revelation for that old wraith Natural Religion."

from "Xmas and Christmas(an allegorical narrative, hence the Crissmass, and Exmas)"
"But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient, But the priest replied, It is not lawful O stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatriibians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. "
(which beautiful backs up a point I had made in a post a few weeks ago on why we should not move Christmas)

Apparently this book is now thought of as out of print or hard to find, but I'm sure other editions of it's three component works: The Pilgrim's Regress, Christian Reflections and God in the Dock have come out.

The book I ordered was sent right away and I received it very quickly, even with media mail. The item was described accurately and I am extremely pleased.