A Book Review

The Surprising Imagination of C.S. Lewis
An Introduction
By Jerry Root and Mark Neal

I found this book to be very enjoyable.  If you are a C.S. Lewis enthusiast then this is the book for you.  Jerry Root and Mark Neal have taken various works of Lewis broken down into two parts.
Part 1: Imagination and the Literature of the Mind consist of an Autobiography, Religious Writing and Literary Criticism. 
Part 2: Imagination and the Literature of the Heart consist of Fairy Stories, Science Fiction, Satire and Poetry.  It is diverse and offers the reader to use their own imagination as these works are displayed while throughout commentary is added by the writers.
It is a wonderful display of how the use of imagination was important to C.S. Lewis.  In every style throughout it is full of his life’s experiences and a great book to add to the collection of any library.
As stated at the beginning and the conclusion from Mr. Lewis himself reads “The imaginative men in me is older, more continuously operative, and in that sense, more basic than either the religious writer or the critic.  It was he who made me first attempt (with little success) to be a poet.  It was he who, in response to the poetry of others, made me a critic, and in defense of that response, sometimes a critical controversialist.  It was he who after my conversion led me to embody my religious beliefs in symbolical or mythopoeic forms, ranging from Screwtape to a kind theologized science fiction.  And it was of course he who has brought me, in the last few years to write the series of Narnian stories for children”.   
This book is well documented and well organized. It gives the reader a greater appreciation for the C.S. Lewis and his contribution to the literary world.  It is an excellent read.

This book was given to me by the publisher for my honest opinion.


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