Customer Reviews

Touring C.S. Lewis' Ireland & England

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One of my own meaningful pleasures in life is to visit those places that represent some personal or historical improtance in my life. While many such places include train tracks or a large rock in the woods or a particular church in Slovakia, meaningless to others, many others include the public squares of much of modern history. Charles Bridge in Prague is a favorite, as is Westminster Abbey in London. Places of importance for so many saints and sinners and in between. The value of this little book about Lewis is, to people like myself, obvious. Our connection through the page needs to be extended to the place. Lewis, whose writings have inspired our lives with magic and devotion, has also taught many of us the value of the particular. Through the particular we come to the universal. "There are no trees, only this Elm." Put another way, he teaches us the value of place and physicality.

For those American readers who have been to England it is clear that the island is the landscape of dragons and queens. Each page of this book is filled with those little details that tease us a little more and draw us closer. Filled with photos and maps, it contains VERY detailed descriptions of Lewis' old haunts, along with clear maps and suggestions for daytrips or overnighters. Even if you are not planning on going overseas, this book is a really unique addition to your Lewis collection. The size is just right for touring. It contains two very useful itineraries for either an 8 or 13 day tour of Lewis' England and Ireland. Simple maps are included of Belfast, Headington Quarry, Oxford, Cambridge and the colleges in particular.

You will also enjoy Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis by George Sayer if you are interested in Lewis' life. Two fantastic photo collections with descriptive text are THROUGH JOY AND BEYOND by Walter Hooper and C. S. Lewis: Images of His World by Kilby. Enjoy!

Interesting but not particularly helpful compared w/ the excellent planning that went into the study tour in which I participated about 18 months ago with First Century Voyages.

The diagrams and pictures are almost as if a child drew them. Since I haven't been to England or Ireland, I'm not sure about the content, but quality of the book, the print, the editing are all poor.