Mission to Read All of C.S. Lewis

If it appears that this blog is turning into a C.S. Lewis fest, here's why.

Having already read a good number of Lewis's books, and having noticed that he can make almost any subject interesting, the thought occurred to me: "What if I were to set a goal of reading all of C.S. Lewis's published writings?" After all, I've often thought of choosing some author and reading his or her entire corpus. Several reasons suggested Lewis as a good candidate for this goal:

(1) I already have a fairly good start on him (it's not as though I'd be starting from scratch).
(2) He's extremely readable (it's not as though I'd be reading John Owen for 40 years).
(3) His entire corpus is manageable (it's not as though he wrote 50 massive volumes like Spurgeon or Luther or Augustine).
(4) He would provide variety: his work is a unique mixture of theology (admittedly not always the best), fiction (almost always the best), and literary criticism.
(5) Since I can read Narnia and the Space Trilogy out loud to my kids, I'll be able to kill two birds with one stone with several of the volumes. :-)

So there it is. Sounds like a good idea. I'm young yet. I think I'll do it.

I've got a list of his published works, and the toughest part will be the three big volumes of personal letters, although I could argue that those shouldn't count since they weren't written for publication anyway.

I close with an excerpt from the man himself.

Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But the on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development: When I was ten I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

-C.S. Lewis, "On Three Ways of Writing for Children"