CS Lewis – F.C. MALBY

The Bookseller has announced that Harper Collins imprint The Borough Press is launching a social initiative for booklovers to share books they love on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #bookaday. It will begin today, Sunday 1st June, and run throughout the entire month. Where has the year gone? How did we get to June? I will be blogging briefly on my book choices each day throughout June.

I have many childhood favourites, but The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe sits at the top of the list. I’m sure you know the story but for those who don’t, it’s a fantasy novel for children (and adults!) The first of seven in The Chronicles of Narnia series, this one is probably the most well known. The setting is Narnia, a land of talking animals and mythical creatures that the White Witch has ruled for 100 years of winter. Four children are evacuated from London to an old country house in England during World War 2. Lucy, the youngest, discovers the land of Narnia through a wardrobe in a spare room. The others take some convincing but soon follow. TIME magazine included the book in its “All-TIME 100 Novels.” In 2003, it was listed at number 9 on the BBC‘s survey The Big Read. It has been published in 47 languages.

lion witch wardrobe

Why did I chose this one? I think there was something about the other-worldliness of the story that appealed to me as a child. The idea of a whole world on the other side of all that we know made me curious. I also related to Lucy’s difficulty in convincing her siblings that Narnia existed. There were times in my childhood where people I trusted didn’t believe me when I told them something important. I think a lot of children/adults can connect with this theme. Then there is the struggle between good and evil, between the White Witch and Aslan. Isn’t there always a struggle between good and evil in our minds and in our wills? There are so many themes in the book that I think anyone can relate to. Overall, it’s a magical tale of four children on a journey of discovery, who are willing to battle for justice in a land that not everyone can see. Their different characters and responses to the situations they encounter are, in my eyes, what make the story work. And the illustrations…

Have you read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Join the conversation.

‘A story needs rhythm. Read it aloud to yourself. If it doesn’t spin a bit of magic, it’s missing something.’ Esther Freud

‘Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.’ Will Self

‘I always have to know my characters in a lot of depth–what clothes they’d choose, what they were like at school, etc . . . And I know what happened before and what will happen after the part of their lives I’m dealing with.’ Alice Munro

‘Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. This sounds easy, but in practice is incredibly difficult… Common phrases have become so comfortable that they create no emotional response. Take the time to invent fresh, powerful images.’ George Orwell

‘Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.’ Zadie Smith

‘Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.’ Elmore Leonard

‘Don’t say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers Please will you do the job for me.’ CS Lewis

‘Be daring, take on anything. Don’t labor over little cameo works in which every word is to be perfect. Technique holds a reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in his mind.’ Joyce Carol Oates

‘My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.’ Anton Chekhov

‘Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.’ Margaret Atwood

‘Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion.’ Franz Kafka

‘Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.’ PD James

Tag Archives: CS Lewis

#bookaday Favourite Book From Childhood: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

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