C.S. Lewis
‘I could turn very nasty – I was an egotistical brute’, says Anthony Hopkins
Judging by his autobiography, it’s no wonder the actor was in such demand to play devils, killers, bullies, werewolves and ruthless kings
Even as literate adults, we need to learn how to read
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst shows us the rewards of reading slowly and attentively – and making connections between seemingly disparate things
The English were never an overtly religious lot
Undeterred, Peter Ackroyd takes us on a breezy tour of the nation’s religious history, from the Venerable Bede to the present
All that jazz
Simon Godwin’s Much Ado About Nothing is set in a steamy Italian holiday resort, the Hotel Messina, in the 1920s.…
Life must go on
Well, at least Covid is over. No sooner had Vladimir Putin’s tanks rolled into Ukraine than the UK’s Covid advisory…
A new exhibition gives us the real Tolkien – not his awful legacy
To no one’s surprise, the Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibition at the Bodleian in Oxford, where J.R.R. spent so much…
We’re all poorer for the loss of our small rail lines
To me, the strange words ‘Marsh Gibbon’ once meant I was nearly home. My heart lifted as we creaked and…
A poet in prose
Literary reputation can be a fickle old business. Those garlanded during their lifetimes are often quickly forgotten once dead. Yet…
Charles Williams: sadist or Rosicrucian saint?
Charles Williams was a bad writer, but a very interesting one. Most famous bad writers have to settle, like Sidney…
Putting away the fear of childishness
Go to any bookshop — always supposing you’re fortunate enough to have any left in your neck of the woods…
Squirming at Screwtape
A surfeit of anniversaries this week reminded us that on the day of President Kennedy’s assassination, C.S. Lewis (born 1898)…
In Aslan’s country
Philip Womack 1 May 2021 9:00 am
C. S. Lewis’s enchanting Chronicles of Narniaseries has, in recent years, come under critical fire. It’s racist, sexist, colonialist; blatant…