Most recently added: GKC, Man Who Was Thursday; CSL, De descriptione temporum; GKC, Manalive
The Great Divorce (1945) Nov 1, 2019 A Holiday to Heaven: A Discussion of ‘The Great Divorce’ by C.S. Lewis What would happen if people could leave Hell and visit Heaven? In this week’s episode, Dr. David Downing sits down with Dr. Jerry Root to discuss C.S. Lewis’s spiritual fantasy about inhabitants of hell who visit…
That Hideous Strength (1945) Oct 16, 2020 The Lost Lewis Tapes: Vol. 3, That Hideous Strength “Stand! Stand where you are … ,” C.S. Lewis bellows into the tape recorder. In this third installment of The Lost Lewis Tapes, Drs. Crystal and David C. Downing sit down with Producer Aaron Hill to discuss the final novel in the…
English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama. Oxford History of English Literature (1944). For this and other scholarly works by Lewis, see the discussion of Jerry Root, The Neglected Works of C. S. Lewis. This title is often abbreviated OHEL, for Oxford History. Aug 7, 2020 The Neglected C.S. Lewis w/ Jerry Root If you…
The Man Born to Be King (1943) Mar 6, 2020 Rediscovering ‘The Man Born to Be King’ w/ Dr. Christine Colón and Marjorie Mead How can we possibly see the story of Jesus with fresh eyes this Lenten season? In this week’s episode Dr. Crystal Downing sits down to discuss Dorothy L. Sayers’s play-cycle on the…
The Abolition of Man (1943) Apr 1, 2022 The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis Who or what deserves our allegiance? Our heart? An external morality handed down by our parents or Christendom? Our intellect or science? In one of his most challenging books, The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis addresses many of the assumptions about morality,…
Perelandra (1943) Oct 2, 2020 The Lost Lewis Tapes: Vol. 2, Perelandra In a quiet room at the Kilns in August 1960, C. S. Lewis recorded three audio tracks on a portable reel-to-reel tape deck. In one of those tracks, Lewis reads from Perelandra for 27 minutes, narrating in a mesmerizing and confident voice Elwin Ransom’s arrival on the watery…
The Screwtape Letters (1942) May 21, 2021 The Screwtape Letters w/ Dr. Jerry Root These days, discussions about demons and temptation are an uncommon occurrence—at least sober ones. In this week’s episode, Dr. Jerry Root sits down with Drs. Crystal and David C. Downing to discuss The Screwtape Letters (1942) by C.S. Lewis. What inspired Lewis to write…
Jul 24, 2020 “Down to the Wireless: The Radio Addresses of C. S. Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers.” Before he was famous for his books, C.S. Lewis was one of the most well-recognized voices in Britain because of his broadcasts on ‘the wireless.’ In this week’s episode, Drs. Crystal and David C. Downing sit down…
The Mind of the Maker (1941) Oct 18, 2019 The Mind of the Potter w/ David Hooker How does creativity work? What does it mean that we are created in the image of a Creator God? Professor of Art at Wheaton College, David Hooker, sits down with David and Crystal this week to discuss how he…
Creed or Chaos? (1940), Vol. 1; Vol. 2 Vol. 1 May 27, 2022 Creed or Chaos: Vol. 1, Essays by Dorothy L. Sayer’s on the Importance of Theology Words like dogma and theology have for a long time been viewed as “dull” and irrelevant, but in a series of essays written in the late 1930s Dorothy L. Sayers…
The Problem of Pain, Part 1 and Part 2 (1940) Part 1 Jan 21, 2022 Love, Pain, Grief, and Joy: Vol. 2, The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to.” Dr. Jerry Root, scholar and close friend of the podcast, is back again for our second installment of…
Out of the Silent Planet (1938) Sep 18, 2020 The Lost Lewis Tapes: Vol. 1, Out of the Silent Planet Before he was known as a children’s author, C.S. Lewis wrote science fiction. Listen to never-before-heard audio recordings of Lewis reading from his Ransom Trilogy in this exciting three-part series on Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous…
Ransom Trilogy (1938-1945): Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength Purchase and listen to The Lost Lewis Tapes over at the Rabbit Room for only $3. Click here to learn more about The Lost Lewis Tapes, who recorded them, and how the Marion E. Wade Center is able to make them available 70…
The Hobbit (1937) Not yet discussed. External links:
Gaudy Night (1935) Jan 29, 2021 Gaudy Night Can a detective novel without a grisly murder be any good? If Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers is any indication: Yes! In this episode, Dr. Crystal Downing—an expert on Sayers—sits down with Dr. David C. Downing and Producer Aaron Hill to discuss one of Sayers most unique, and perhaps…
The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933) Jun 4, 2021 Deciphering The Pilgrim’s Regress by C.S. Lewis Less than a year after his conversion, C.S. Lewis wrote The Pilgrim’s Regress in only two weeks while visiting his friend Arthur Greeves in Ireland. Lewis’s thick landscape of literary allusions, quotes, and philosophical criticism has long thwarted interested readers. In this week’s episode,…
Lord Peter Wimsey (Sayers), Father Brown (Chesterton) Aug 21, 2020 “Murder at the Wade: The Detective Fiction of G.K. Chesterton and Dorothy L. Sayers Whether it is a game of Clue or an episode of Sherlock on the BBC, everyone loves to solve a good murder mystery. In this week’s episode, Drs. Crystal and David…
Dymer (1926; pseudonym Clive Hamilton); Book launch by Jerry Root November 18, 2020 Book Launch for Splendour in the Dark: C. S. Lewis’s Dymer in His Life and Work Author and Professor of Evangelism Jerry Root and Wade Center Co-director David C. Downing discuss this fourth volume in the Hansen Lectureship series. Several years before he converted…
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Tolkien’s edition published in 1925, translation published in 1975) Dec 2, 2022 Tolkien and the Green Knight Did you know that the archaic language in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight colored J.R.R. Tolkien’s prose in The Lord of the Rings? Or that the characters in this medieval, fourteenth century, fairy tale…
G. K. Chesterton, Manalive (London: John Lane, 1912) August 31, 2023 Manalive by G.K. Chesterton In Orthodoxy (1908), G.K. Chesterton shares his idea to write a romance in which an Englishman travels around the world and sets foot on a foreign land only to discover that he returned home. “How can we contrive to be astonished at…
G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday (London: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1908) July 28, 2023 The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton Only G.K. Chesterton could write a detective novel about undercover poet cops bravely battling anarchists as a way of explaining the problem of evil and the revelation of God in nature.…
Orthodoxy (1908) Part 1, chs. 1-4 Dec 16, 2022 Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton, Part 1 Over the last century many Christian apologists have made a name for themselves. At the root of this apologetic tree lies the genius and charm of Gilbert Keith Chesterton and Orthodoxy. In this week’s episode, Drs. Crystal and David C. Downing sit down…
The Princess and the Goblin (1872), The Princess and Curdie (1883) Jul 8, 2022 The Princess, Curdie, and Goblins, Oh My! C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Madeleine L’Engle, and Neil Gaiman are praised for penning imaginative worlds and inspiring stories. But did you know that all these writers were inspired by George MacDonald? In particular, they were inspired by…
Phantastes (1858) Part 1 Oct 29, 2022 Phantastes by George MacDonald This is the story that started it all—the fairy tale that baptized C.S. Lewis’s imagination and inspired countless fantasy novels such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In this week’s episode, Drs. Crystal and David C. Downing sit down with Producer Aaron Hill to discuss George MacDonald’s…
Mark Neal and Jerry Root, The Neglected C. S. Lewis: Exploring the Riches of His Most Overlooked Books (Brewster, Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2020) Aug 7, 2020 The Neglected C.S. Lewis w/ Jerry Root If you are a serious C.S. Lewis fan, you likely know and love The Chronicles of Narnia, the Ransom Trilogy, and apologetics…
Crystal Downing, Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Broadleaf Books, 2020) Nov 13, 2020 The Subversive Sayers w/ Dr. Crystal Downing Dorothy L. Sayers used edgy, often hilarious metaphors to shock people into seeing the truth of ancient Christian doctrines in a new light. In this week’s episode, Dr. Crystal…
Christine Colón Crystal Downing David Hooker David McNutt Graham Shea Jerry Root Laura Schmidt Marjorie Mead