Here's amatire's writings from The Lion's Club. If you only have time to read one, be sure to check out the one on Screwtape Letters.

Amatire's Angle

The Horse and His Boy

published 1954 by Geoffrey Bles

Synopsis

Shasta is a young boy who lives in Calormen, during the time when Peter is High King of Narnia.  After a surprise encounter with a talking horse called Bree he decides to run away from his father and escape from the desert land of Calormen into the north.

Their adventures take them to many strange places, and they meet many unusual people.  Not least of all the Tarkaheena Aravis on a journey to escape a fate of her own.

But without warning they stumble across something they should never have heard and their journey takes on a new level of urgency.

Join with Shasta, Aravis, and the horses Bree and Hwin as they race against time to get a vital message to the kingdoms of Archenland and Narnia.  Can they get there before the invading armies arrive?

Review

This is an exciting little book, which gives you a glimpse of the amazing lands that exist around Narnia.  You can almost taste the spices in the Calormene city of Tashbaan, and feel the dryness on your tongue as the heroes struggle across the fiery desert sands.

There is a spine-tingling encounter with Aslan, and a chilling moment inside the palace of the Tisroc (the Emperor of Calormen), when Aravis faces capture and beheading for what she has overheard.

All our old friends are there, Tumnus the fawn, Susan and Edmund, and a few new faces, such as Corin Prince of Arkenland.  It has a different feel to the other books in the Narnia Chronicles series because it starts by plunging you straight into the world of Shasta and Calormen rather than with the familiar world of the Pevensies, school and holidays in the country.  But of all seven, I would have to say it is my favourite.  It adds a little background to what happend while the Four Children were Kings and Queens of Narnia and it shows the world they ruled over from the perspective of the people who actually lived there.

But do not worry, talking animals, high adventure and magic all abound just like they do in the other six books.  And Aslan appears to show us that children of this world are not the only ones who are lucky enough to meet him!

The Screwtape Letters

Published in 1942 by Harper Collins

Synopsis.

Wormwood is a demon. Or to put it more precisely, he is a trainee demon. He has been assigned to a new young Christian to try and foil the man's attempts at following his new faith. But his work so far has been a little shaky at best, so his uncle Screwtape writes him letters to instruct him on the diabolical arts. Screwtape's advice ranges from bugging the mortal with the annoying habits of its mother to distracting him into worship of other 'gods' like money or lust.

Set beneath the backdrop of Britain in the second world war, the reader watches as the world goes crazy around them, and the pair of demons are slowly confounded by the 'Enemy's' secret weapon - love. Something neither of them can comprehend.

Review

C.S. Lewis devoted this book to the  man who was responsible for leading  him into the Christian faith: J.R.R  Tolkien. It is a light-hearted look into a  very heavy subject - demonic activity  in the world. Lewis cleverly twists  round people's normal perceptions of  God and the Devil, to the demon's  point of view, calling God "the  Enemy" and the Devil "Our Father  Below".

The relationship between Wormwood and his uncle is fascinating to read, even though we only get to see Screwtape's side of the correspondance. But Screwtape often refers to what the young demon has said in the course of his replies. Screwtape begins each letter with "my dear Wormwood" and ends with "Your affectionate Uncle". But bit by bit as their relationship degrades the address changes into something much more sarcastic and vicious: "My dear, my very dear, Wormwood, my poppet, my pigsnie". The whole book is loaded with wry humour like this which makes the powerful content slip down as easily icecream. You're learning but you don't notice that you are.

This book is an eyeopener if ever there was one. Readers are constantly surprised by the number of 'tricks' Screwtape mentions that they may actually be falling for. Such as turning the subject's gaze from seeking help from God to trying to help themselves. For example he suggests that instead of getting the Christian to pray for courage, they should be concentrating on feeling brave. In this way Lewis reminds the reader of the subtle difference between what is real and what a person feels to be real. Many Christians will be familiar with this, especially in the realm of faith, but it is useful to be reminded of it.

Even though the book is highly Christian in content, it would be a mistake to believe that Lewis wrote it purely for a Christian audience. He intended it for a much wider readership than that. Which means he made sure it was easy to read and understand, quoting famous literature - such as the works of Samuel Coleridge - more often than he quotes from the bible.

Lewis claims these two quotes from leading Churchmen as his inspiration.

"The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." ~ Martin Luther

"The devil... the prowde spirite.... cannot endure to be mocked" ~ Thomas More

He writes a short prologue to the book which states that he supposedly came across these letters, but will not divulge how, and explains some of his reasoning for offering them to the public. As a final thought, remember Lewis' own opinion on the demonic.

As far as he was concerned, there are two errors to be made when thinking of devils: Firstly to not believe in them at all, and secondly, to have too great (and unhealthy) interest in them. The devils themselves, he says, are just as pleased with both perspectives, greeting the materialistic man and 'a magician' with the same level of delight.

You have been warned!

Surprised by Joy

first published in 1935 by Geoffrey Bles

Synopsis

Delve into the wonderful world of C.S. Lewis' childhood, with stiff, annoying Eaton collars, the perfect loveliness of his nurse Lizzie Endicott, and the horrors of a school he called Belsen after the concentration camp. Terrifying teachers, riotous bullies, and exhilarating rides on the ferry to England watching the Irish coast slip away behind him. The glorious holidays back home in Ireland with his brother, packed with imaginary worlds full of mystery and adventure, and secret moments snatched alone in the attic rooms of his house with book after book after book that fed his imagination until it spilled over into writings of his own.

Here we learn where he first developed his fascination with dwarves and ancient myths, his delight in the richness of people's characters. How the pain of loosing his mother tore away joy from his life until it remained only as moments like islands in a vast empty sea. And how walking with other wise men in the collage gardens of Oxford restored his faith in the world of man and Joy in the Almighty.

Review.

This book tells you all you would wish to know about Lewis' childhood and gives you tantalizing glimpses in to the inspiration for the Narnia Chronicles that the world was going to love so much. Just take a look at his experiences at his vicious first-school ruled by the terrifying Headmaster "Oldie."

"he had his favourite victims, boys who could do nothing right. I have known Oldie enter the schoolroom after breakfast,cast his eyes round, and remark, 'Oh, there you are, Rees, you horrid boy. If I'm not too tired I shall give you a good drubbing (whipping) this afternoon.'"

The prep school at Wyvern with its many bullies where he went next was hardly any better. He once spent an entire afternoon locked up in the coal cellar where the older boys had shoved him just for fun. Surely this must be part of his inspiration for the unpleasant descriptions of life at the "Co-educational" school where poor Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole were chased behind the Gym. But if you are looking for information about the source of the Narnian world he created, don't look here. Despite an utterly convincing story about Animal Land, (an imaginary creation of his childhood full of talking animals and adventure) he insists that

"For readers of my children's books, [I] would ...say that Animal-Land had nothing whatever in common with Narnia exept the anthropomorphic beasts."

Still the adventures of this wonderful land are entertaining to read - where he gives any mention to them - in particular the antics of a powerful Frog Prime Minister called Lord Big with a magnetic personality. The stories are dotted about the book amongst the real-live events of his life and take some searching out but they are like little gems when they are found. Other sources of inspiration for narnia are revealed. Such as his discovery of Dwarfs in the books in his father's library and his delight in them to the point of being convinced that they were real. He once believed he saw one darting across the lawn of his house.

A lot of the book runs as a list of book-reviews, inviting you to step into the stories and authors that inspired him as a child. His description of the poems making up Wagner's Ring Cycle are so passionately written that anyone who remains unaffected - and without a desire to read them for themselves - must be lacking a heart!

But soon the child grows up and we enter into a different phase of the book. No less interesting than the first. Passing through his graduation from school and application to Oxford university, and onto the frightening events of 1914-1918. Of this, I feel it is sad that unlike many autobiographies of his time Lewis skips over the horrors that he suffered in the First World War (which surely had a formative influence on him as a young man) with barely a mention. But it is fitting, because this book is not about pain and suffering, it is about joy. How he was delighted by it as a child, how he lost it - wondering if it would ever return - and how it slowly crept back into his life again.

The climax - a beautiful story of his encounter with God on a bus - I must confess left me cold. It was not the amazing event the rest of the book had built it up to be, and personally I saw nothing particularly "Joyous" in it. But then, for one I wasn't there, and for another Lewis always was a master of understatement. So do not let that put you off this lovely little book!