January to June of this year has been a fruitful time of reading. Here are some truly outstanding titles that I have enjoyed in the first half of this year (in no particular order):
A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken
This book was written by a dear friend of C.S. Lewis, and it preserves several treasured letters from Jack himself. Yet the book accomplishes so much more than offer light on a friendship with Lewis. The first third, after a melancholy foreshadowing, takes the reader on a journey to meet Sheldon and his eventual wife, “Davy.” They share a special love for beauty in nature—even a pagan love—and the level of bonding between the two of them is something that perhaps only happens to one in a million marriages.
The next third follows the couple through their time in Oxford, coming to know the Christian faith as the culmination of the beauty that they had always worshiped. Both of their conversions bud out of a newfound friendship with Lewis and his steady encouragement. I found myself wistfully longing to experience the atmosphere of Oxford described by Vanauken in the 1950’s: the contemplative walks with Lewis, the long evenings and nights hosting colleagues for fun, debate, and friendship . . . there was something in the air that I could feel coming right out of the pages.
The final third of the book centers on the author’s personal tragedy and his subsequent bereavement process. By this time, the reader feels that he knows Vanauken on a personal level, and the intimate recollections of this chapter of his life (again as he was guided by a correspondence with Lewis) had a profound effect on my person, and as Walter Hooper has expressed, “I don’t think I could ever forget it.”
Jack by George Sayer
It is a treasure to have such a work written by a close friend of Lewis. Despite Jack’s penchant for privacy about his personal life, George Sayer does a commendable job fleshing out the contours of his personal and professional development alongside a history of his writings. Through reading this book, much of my idealization of Lewis was brought back to a more realistic level: the man had his faults, both idiosyncratic (forgetfulness, inability to do math, addiction to nicotine and tea, and gluttonous eating manners) and sinful (dishonesty and sadism, though these features become undetectable after his conversion).
All the same, my appreciation for Lewis after reading this has come to be as deep as ever. Knowing the trials he endured while he penned so much of his imaginative and joyous works put a new layer to their significance. Some of these trials, like his brother Warnie’s alcoholism, never wholly subsided.
Beyond the bigger “facts” of his life, moreover, I found myself constantly smiling at the little notes here and there of Lewis’ distinctive character traits: his tendency to jump into a stream for a swim at a moment’s notice, even while on a walk with a friend, his constant wit, humor, and nicknames with friends, and his unparalleled magnanimity and humility. Whether I read Lewis himself, or whether I read about Lewis from a friend, I feel the sense of utter goodness that is so rare to be found in this age.
Passport to Magonia by Jacques Vallée
I wish I had read this book years ago. I am beyond impressed with the level of research and ability to discern common motifs between modern UFO encounters with timeless tales of interactions with demons, fairies, little people, etc.
Though Vallée does not (in this book at least) offer much in the way of positive conclusions, I think he does a fantastic job undermining the idea that the “ufonauts” are “regular” organic lifeforms from other planets. (He is also convincing that these encounters cannot be chalked up wholesale to mere fraud and hallucinations.) As many people have started to realize and talk about in the popular discourse in the last few years, this phenomenon seems best explained by the idea of spiritual/interdimensional entities (or, less plausibly in my opinion, a series of kind of psychic projections of what Jung called the “collective unconscious” of mankind). Vallée’s work was thus far ahead of its time (originally written in 1968).
How (Not) to be Secular by James K.A. Smith
This book was my first introduction to the thought of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. The entire book—which is actually a reasonable size—felt like drinking from a fire hydrant. Taylor’s concept of “cross pressure” (the oppressive feeling of competing belief systems and epistemologies all around us) put words to an idea that I have tacitly recognized for a long time, and his “existential map” of our “secular age” was both illuminating and at the same time cathartic. Taylor’s ideas (as excellently conveyed by Smith) will haunt me for the indefinite future and will shape the way I categorize my thoughts in future writings.
See my fuller review here.
Modern Times by Paul Johnson
For the incredible scope and density of the material, it astounds me how well Paul Johnson can hold the reader’s attention. Every page is packed with some surprising detail. He avoids the perennial pitfall of broad historical books like this: simply listing “one damn thing after another.” Instead, he traces key themes (especially that of moral relativism and the intelligentsia’s quest for utopia by any means necessary) which interpenetrate the events of history’s most destructive century, with a legacy of 150 million unnatural deaths.
Johnson has a refreshing take on a number of events and figures and offers surprising, little known details that reshape the received wisdom that we often take for granted. (Though at times I feel he is somewhat unfair, as in his treatment of JFK.) At the risk of sounding cliché, this is a work that everyone should include in their personal education. I had considered myself more or less competently aware of the events and streams of thought of the twentieth century, but general summaries and bullet points are no match for actually reading the visceral details and key turning points of this fateful era.
This book, and the events it so acutely captures, will haunt me for years to come.
Honorable mentions:
The Invisible Dimension by Matthew D. Arnold
The Return of the Kingdom by Stephen G. Dempster
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven by Peter Kreeft
Leadership and Emotional Sabotage by Joe Rigney
Unholy Spirits by Gary North
I was looking for the title of your book until I realized you were the one writing the blog! Lol