About this title: C.S. Lewis documents his search for joy, starting with his childhood in Belfast, through a period of atheism, and then back to Christianity through a course of rational thought. This book was initially published in 1955.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Fount
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780006238157ISBN:0006238157
Description: Acceptable. *** Expect to receive a well read copy-The condition of the book will be readable, perhaps with heavy creasing and some damage. You wouldn't want to give it as a present-Dispatched in padded packaging. ** UK SELLER-Get it in days not weeks ** read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Fount
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780006238157ISBN:0006238157
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Fount
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780006238157ISBN:0006238157
Description: Good. This book is in GOOD overall condition. It shows signs of having been read and has general light wear to the cover, spine and pages. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Fount
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780006238157ISBN:0006238157
Description: Good. The pages of this book show discolouration due to age/shelf-life. Our books are dispatched from Bridgend, South Wales. Your Satisfaction Guarenteed. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Fount, London
Date Published: 1974
ISBN-13:9780006238157ISBN:0006238157
Description: Fair. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. 25% of the proceeds from this book will be donated to charity. tanned and foxed to pages, foredge and slight foxing and creasing to cover. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Fount
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780006238157ISBN:0006238157
Description: Good. Our aim is to create value for our customers through the provision of low cost, affordable products and an overall satisfying buying experience. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Fount
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780006238157ISBN:0006238157
Description: Good. Book cover-The cover of this book is creased or has markings in accordance with the book's age. Message within the book from previous owner. Page colour-Slightly discoloured in accordance with book age. The edges of this book are slightly discoloured. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Edition: 10th Impression
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Fontana, London England
Date Published: 1971
Description: Fair. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall Paperback Paperback. Foxing to end inside covers. Marks to end inside covers from old sellotape. This autobiography supplies the answers to two questions that the hundreds of thousands of professor Lewis's religious books must have often asked themselves. How could the author of The Problem of Pain, The Scretape Letters and all those other works so radiant with the sense of God have ever been without the sense of God himself? And how in the end did he attain it? ... read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Fontana
Date Published: 1964
Description: Good. Cover a bit worn and creased on extremities, Pages slightly tanned, but legable; A good tight copy; rest All in good condition; read more
Description: Rep. "You can take it at two levels, as straight autobiography, or as a kind of spiritual thriller, a detective's probing of clue and motive that led up to his return to the Christianity he had lost in childhood. "(Isabel Quigley, Sunday Times). Pp.190/2(ads), owners name to inside front cover. Pbk, cover design by Tony Meeuwissen. VG. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harcourt
Date Published: 1956/06/01
ISBN-13:9780151870110ISBN:015187011X
Description: Used-Acceptable. Small inscription inside, Pages good, No dust jacket, Cover bumped on cotners. First published 1955 by Geoffrey Bles. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: FOUNT
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780006238157ISBN:0006238157
Description: Published by Fount in 1983. Paperback. Number of pages: 190. Condition: Very Good. May show some slight signs of wear. Wear to extremities. Internally good. Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: FOUNT
Date Published: 1977
ISBN-13:9780006238157ISBN:0006238157
Description: Published by FOUNT in 1977, 189 pages, paperback, medium size, internally good. Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: FOUNT
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780006238157ISBN:0006238157
Description: Published by Fount in 1983. Binding: Paperback. Number of pages: 190. Condition: Very Good. May show some slight signs of wear. #8475133 Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: FOUNT
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780006238157ISBN:0006238157
Description: Published by Fount in 1983. Paperback. Number of pages: 190. Condition: Good. Used book but in Good Condition for sensible price. Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Fontana, 5th impression, February
Date Published: 1965
Description: Paperback, good minus condition, creased on wraps, small tear on top edge of back wrap and many of last pages, edges of page discoloured, 190pp. Young's no 2321*. read more
"This book is of great interest if you care about the life of C.S. Lewis. If you don't, I would probably skip it. What few "gems" there are in the book can be summed up rather quickly in a few quotes. What you don't get, if you decide to go that route, is the feeling that you're actually conversing with Lewis himself. That is probably the best part of the whole deal.
Bits I found shocking? His descriptions of public school (yikes!) and the war (more in that it didn't really seem to affect him at all). If you're looking for the story of his conversion, it's here, but really, the story centers on his pre-conversion life."
"I'm only half way through this book. I am enjoying reading it, but I'm not completely following it. I haven't read the classics and so I'm lost when he relates life to them, and I don't understand the British vernacular. So there are whole sections where I'm lost - haven't a clue what those pages are saying. They might as well be written in Greek. And another part where he writes of his experience in the English public school system fills me with terror as to the perversity / evil in this world, especially because I have two little boys. I'm thankful that I just finished reading C.S. Lewis' letters to a lady who wrote to him and to whom he wrote back because he felt that it was his duty to answer the letters he received. Because he was kind and gentle in his letters. I'll update this when I have finished this book. I think that the second half will be brighter because it will be a history of his life in a relationship with Jesus.
Now I am almost finished with this book. I think it is interesting where he is talking about how we are all created by God (he thinks of God as only a Spirit at this point) and how to prefer our own happiness to our neighbor's is like thinking that the closest telephone pole is really the largest.
Esther, I thought of you where he writes "I had been far more anxious to avoid suffering than to achieve delight. I had always aimed at limited liabilities." :) And of myself also. An acquaintance of mine on fb posted the quote (attributed to Mark Twain) about at one's deathbed one will be more upset about the things one did not do rather than those things one did do. And I am not made in that way. I know that when I look back 20 years I am more upset by the wrong I have done (especially towards others). I'm not much upset by the great things (even great good) that I have not done.
My last comment - This book is worth reading if only for the very last page. "But what, in conclusion, of Joy? for that, after all, is what the story has mainly been about. To tell you the truth, the subject has lost nearly all interest for me since I became a Christian. I cannot, indeed, complain, like Wordsworth, that the visionary gleam has passed away. I believe (if the thing were at all worth recording) that the old stab, the old bittersweet, has come to me as often and as sharply since my conversion as at any time of my life whatever. But I now know that the experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the kind of importance I once gave it. It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer naturally loomed large in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods the sight of a signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries, "Look!" The whole party gathers round and stares. But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. 'We would be at Jerusalem.' Not, of course, that I don't often catch myself stopping to stare at roadside objects of even less importance.""
"So I've now read this book twice, and liked it both times, although probably more the first time. So I'd say it really has a 3.5 rating. I really liked reading about how CS Lewis examined his childhood, and I loved reading about the different things that gave him a "stab of Joy", especially the books. Now I want to read the books/poems that he read.
He used a lot of words and phrases that I didn't understand, but this one I did, and it was one of my favourite thoughts: "Even if my own philosophy were true, how could the initiative lie on my side? My own analogy, as I now first perceived it, suggested the opposite: if Shakespeare and Hamlet could ever meet, it must be Shakespeare's doing. Hamlet could initiate nothing...Shakespeare could, in principal, make himself appear as Author within the play, and write a dialogue between Hamlet and himself. The "Shakespeare" within the play would of course be at once Shakespeare and one of Shakespeare's creatures. It would bear some analogy to the Incarnation.""
"I really enjoyed reading this book. I've owned it for years, a book I inherited from my dad's bookshelf. I've always had the desire in the back of my mind to read it, have leant it out a few times, but still hadn't read it myself. There's always that other book. Well I lent it out again recently and when I got it back I left it on my night stand (the infamous pile that grows and shrinks and holds no book in any particular order to be read)rather than put it on the bookshelf. I think CS Lewis had a great way of thinking and writing. His ability to express thoughts and fellings were incredible. I found myself reading parts out loud to Philip quite often. I've had moments outside of reading, during conversations with friends or just a quiet observations when his words have come back and I think, "Oh ya, that's what he was talking about". There are no heirs, no pretenses in his writing, but he is who he is. Being such an educated man, and this being a book about the things that influenced him in his journey from Christianity to Atheism back to Christianity, he uses a lot of literary references that I'm not familiar with. So the meaning was a little lost on me even though he painted the picture of where it took him."
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