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A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis

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What makes this anthology different from other C.S. Lewis collections is the way in which the quotations are organized. Beginning with The Nature of Man, Kilby takes the reader through Lewis' idea that we were made for another world!Other sections include The Moral World, The Bible, The Trinity, Sin, The Christian Commitment, Hell & Heaven, Love & Sex, Nature, and The Post-Christian World. From these quotations, the works of Lewis offer yet another effective apologetic for Christ and Christianity. Taking from expository works like The Four Loves, The Problem of Pain and The Screwtape Letters, as well as Lewis' allegorical writings such as The Chronicles Of Narnia, The Great Divorce, and The Space Trilogy, "A Mind Awake" is the definitive C.S. Lewis anthology.

C.S Lewis's ability to articulate the the deep feelings we have about our relationship to God is without parallel. He is able to put into words what we all know but were never able to express. It's a wonderfull book to have in your library. You will go back to it again and again. Not able to compete with the scriptures of course but what a gift to understand them better.

This book is the perfect introduction to C. S. Lewis. If he is virgin intellectual territory for you, then I suggest getting this book, "Abolition of Man," "The Screwtape Letters," and "The Lion Witch and The Wardrobe" as your first taste of Lewis.

It has a nice balance of the all the standard and the obscure works of C. S. Lewis. It is arraigned into ten sections:

I. The Nature Of Man.
II. The Moral World.
III. The Bible.
IV. The Trinity.
V. Sin.
VI. The Christian Commitment.
VII. Hell And Heaven.
VIII. Love And Sex.
IX. Nature.
X. The Post-Christian World

To his credit, Kilby closely follows Lewis's own patterns of thought, and does not intrude his own opinion or try to slant Lewis's words to his own opinion.

Of the selection process, he said:

"It is obvious that no two people endeavouring to select the best from a man's works will always choose identical passages, and the richer the content of those works the less likelihood of total agreement. . Concerning the making of anthologies Lewis himself once remarked, `No man ever agrees with another man's choice, and to disagree is one of the pleasures of using an anthology.' Nothing more can be said than that here you have my own choices based on thirty-odd years of reading and rereading Lewis."

Lewis has one of those rare minds that has depth and breath, who can be succinct and deep, like church bell peal. His wiring is dense, and forces you to think.

C.S. Lewis lives on through his writings, and through the rewritings of his works into new generations of books, plays, and films. This anthology pulls into one work some of the most inspirational segments of his work.
Here are a few quotes that are meaningful to me:
Pg51--Surprised by Joy chap. 14--"We are inveterate poets. When a quantity is very great we cease to regard it as a mere quantity. Our imaginations awake."
Pg143--As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you lo0ved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. Mere Christianity, bk 3, ch.9
Pg164--`You all know,' said the Guide, `that security is mortals' greatest enemy.' The Pilgrim's Regress, bk 10, ch. 1
Pg224--I think no class of men are less enslaved to the past than historians. The unhistorical are usually, without knowing it, enslaved to a fairly recent past. They Asked for a Paper, ch. 1

I like Lewis because he causes me to think "Is this true?"

I love C.S. Lewis - and this book is great at capturing him throughout all his works. It's nice to have a book that you can just flip open and get a refreshing dose of C.S. Lewis intellect. Highly recommend!!

Don't have time to read all the works of C.S. Lewis but want to get a clear picture of the man and his thought? This volume includes pungent and provocative ideas from all of Lewis' more than 40 books as well as material from uncollected essays. There are quotations illuminating the nature of man and the moral imperative, God and the Christian commitment, love and sex, and what Lewis calls the "post-Christian" man. What is delivered in this book is a long report on the "weather of Lewis' sensibility" -- or, if you will, the very table talk of his soul. Editor, Clyde Kilby, is professor of English at Wheaton College and the author of The Christian World of C.S. Lewis.