I seldom do well at New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve failed at almost every well-intentioned goal. One that I have managed to keep is my reading resolution. As I’ve begun working on a PhD in Theology and Literature (focussing on C.S. Lewis’ fictional world-building), I knew that I would have to increase my reading level. A couple of years ago I began recording my reading to keep me motivated. I don’t count individual poems, most short stories, editorials, blogs, or one-off documentaries. I also don’t count essays that I read quickly or books that I scan.
In 2012 and 2013 I met and exceeded my goals (50 and 100 books/essays respectively). I set a goal for 2014 of 150 books, essays, or lecture series. Because of a strong first half of the year, I hit that goal on June 30th!
Actually, I hit 225 in total. It was a cool year, with rich reading from beginning to end.
In the world of fiction, I finished Roger Zelazny’s brilliant 10-part Amber series and Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. I re-read Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry with new depth of meaning, and slipped in some Stephen King. I’m slowly working my way through Terry Pratchett (Discworld) and C.S. Lewis chronologically. I’m in 1945 for Lewis and 1991 for Pratchett. Another thread that links the novels is “epistolary fiction”–books that are written in diary and letter form.
In my nonfiction reading, I am exploring some intriguing Christian thinkers–Barth, Tillich, Bonhoeffer, Hauerwas–and some writers who write about writers and writing. I’ve read dozens of Lewis essays and a few writers whose work sits on the edge between fiction and nonfiction, like the philosophical stories of George Orwell and Ayn Rand, or a memoir like Frank McCourt’s. I was also reading for three papers I worked on through the year. I read a few duds, but I was constantly amazed in my nonfiction how relevant the great essayist are, even now, years later.
What of 2015? I am working full time for much of 2015, so I don’t know what I can achieve. Last year I wanted to do one iTunesU class a month, but I only got through 3. I think 5 is a good goal. Last year I read 108 books and would love to reach 100 again. I am ambitiously setting my goal for 200 books, essays, and classes, with some considerable doubt that it is possible. I like lofty goals: I’d rather fail later–by not reaching them–than fail now by giving up!
“CSL” below means “C.S. Lewis.” I’ve linked some of the blogs that connect with the things I’ve read. I hope you enjoy, and if you have your own year-end list or best-of blog, make sure you list it!
| 1 | 01/01 | Roger Zelazny, Sign of the Unicorn (1975) |
| 2 | 01/01 | Stephen King, ‘Salem’s Lot (1975) |
| 3 | 01/02 | Roger Zelazny, The Hand of Oberon (1976) |
| 4 | 01/03 | Roger Zelazny, The Courts of Chaos (1978) |
| 5 | 01/04 | Madeleine L’Engle, An Acceptable Time (1989) |
| 6 | 01/06 | Roger Zelazny, Trumps of Doom (1985) |
| 7 | 01/06 | CSL, review of Esdaile, Sources of English Lit (1929) |
| 8 | 01/06 | CSL, review of Garrod, Collins (1929) |
| 9 | 01/06 | Stanley Hauerwas, “Vision, Stories, and Character “ (1973) |
| 10 | 01/07 | Stanley Hauerwas, “Reforming Christian Social Ethics: Ten Theses” (1981) |
| 11 | 01/07 | Stanley Hauerwas, “A Story-Formed Community: Reflections on Watership Down” (1981) |
| 12 | 01/07 | CSL, “Tasso” (1940s) |
| 13 | 01/07 | Roger Zelazny, Blood of Amber (1986) |
| 14 | 01/09 | Roger Zelazny, Sign of Chaos (1987) |
| 15 | 01/10 | CSL, “Dangers of National Repentance” (1940), plus 3 letters to the editor in response |
| 16 | 01/10 | Saving Jesus REDUX (2013, 12-part DVD series) |
| 17 | 01/12 | Roger Zelazny, Knight of Shadows (1989) |
| 18 | 01/13 | Stanley Hauerwas, “Character, Narrative, and Growth in the Christian Life” (1980) |
| 19 | 01/13 | CSL, reviews of de Rougemont and Chaveasse (1940) |
| 20 | 01/15 | CSL, “Two Ways of Self” (1940), and other contemporary thoughts and letters in The Guardian |
| 21 | 01/15 | CSL, “The Necessity of Chivalry” (1940) |
| 22 | 01/15 | Beowulf (8th-11th c.) |
| 23 | 01/16 | CSL, “Christianity and Culture” (1940) |
| 24 | 01/16 | Roger Zelazny, Prince of Chaos (1991) |
| 25 | 01/17 | CSL, “Why I Am Not a Pacifist” (1940) |
| 26 | 01/18 | CSL, The Screwtape Letters (1940-41), read by John Cleese, including “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” |
| 27 | 01/20 | CSL, “Meditation on the 3rd Commandment” (1941) |
| 28 | 01/20 | CSL, Review of L.P. Smith, Milton (1940) and letter |
| 29 | 01/20 | CSL, “On Stories” (1940-1947) |
| 30 | 01/21 | CSL, Review essay on Christian Poetry responding to Lord David Cecil’s Oxford Book of Christian Verse (1941) |
| 31 | 01/27 | CSL, “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said” (1956) |
| 32 | 01/28 | CSL, “Image and Imagination” (1931?) |
| 33 | 01/28 | CSL, Review of Ruth Mohl, Three Estates in Medieval and Renaissance Lit (1934) |
| 34 | 01/28 | CSL, Review of E.K. Chambers, Collected Essays (1934) |
| 35 | 01/29 | CSL, Review of T.R. Henn, “Longinus” (1934) |
| 36 | 01/29 | CSL, “The Sagas and Modern Life” (1937) |
| 37 | 01/29 | CSL, Reviews of The Hobbit in The Times and TLS (1937) |
| 38 | 01/30 | CSL, Review of Leone Ebreo’s, The Philosophy of Love (1938) |
| 39 | 01/30 | CSL, Review of H.M. Barrett, Boethius (1941) |
| 40 | 01/30 | CSL, “Evil and God” (1941) |
| 41 | 01/30 | CSL, “Bulverism” (1941; 1944) |
| 42 | 02/01 | Stephen King, The Shining (1977) |
| 43 | 02/03 | CSL, “The Weight of Glory” (1941), + reread Preface |
| 44 | 02/03 | CSL, “Religion: Reality or Substitute” (1941) |
| 45 | 02/04 | CSL, “On Reading The Fairie Queen” (1941) |
| 46 | 02/04 | CSL, Review of Dorothy Sayers, Mind of the Maker (1941) |
| 47 | 02/09 | Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (1957) |
| 48 | 02/13 | CSL, “Shelley, Dryden, and Mr. Elliot” (1938) + preface to Rehabilitations |
| 49 | 02/14 | CSL, Broadcast Talks (1942) |
| 50 | 02/15 | Gary Dorian, Remaking of Evangelical Theology (1998) |
| 51 | 02/16 | CSL, The Screwtape Letters (1940-41) |
| 52 | 02/17 | Justin Phillips, C.S. Lewis at the BBC (2002) |
| 53 | 02/17 | Madeleine L’Engle, Penguins and Golden Calves (2000) |
| 54 | 02/18 | CSL, “Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem” (1942) |
| 55 | 02/18 | CSL, “First and Second Things” (1942) |
| 56 | 02/21 | CSL, “On Ethics” (1942?) |
| 57 | 02/24 | Ralph C. Wood, The Gospel According to Tolkien (2003) |
| 58 | 02/24 | G.K. Chesterton, Manalive (1912) |
| 59 | 02/24 | CSL, Christian Behaviour (1943) |
| 60 | 02/26 | CSL, “Miracles” (1942) |
| 61 | 02/27 | CSL, The Abolition of Man (1943) |
| 62 | 02/28 | CSL, “De Futilitatae” (1943) |
| 63 | 02/28 | Dorothy L. Sayers, The Man Born to Be King (1942-43) |
| 64 | 03/03 | CSL, Review of “Andreas Capellanus” by J.J. Parry (1943) |
| 65 | 03/03 | CSL, “Dogma and the Universe” (1943) |
| 66 | 03/03 | CSL, “Three Kinds of Men” (1943) |
| 67 | 03/04 | John G. Stackhouse, Jr., Making the Best of It (2008) |
| 68 | 03/04 | CSL, “The Poison of Subjectivism” (1943) |
| 69 | 03/04 | CSL, “Equality” (1943) |
| 70 | 03/04 | CSL, “My First School” (1943) |
| 71 | 03/04 | CSL, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (1949), Focus on the Family broadcast |
| 72 | 03/12 | CSL, That Hideous Strength (1943-44) |
| 73 | 03/13 | CSL, Beyond Personality (1943-44) |
| 74 | 03/13 | Reinhold Neihbuhr, The Irony of American History (1952) |
| 75 | 03/14 | CSL, Review of “J. W. H. Atkins, English Literary Criticism: The Medieval Phase” (1944) |
| 76 | 03/14 | CSL, “Is English Doomed?” (1944) |
| 77 | 03/14 | CSL, “Mr. C.S. Lewis on Christianity” (1944) |
| 78 | 03/14 | CSL, “Christian Reunion” (1944) |
| 79 | 03/14 | CSL, “On the Reading of Old Books” (1944) |
| 80 | 03/15 | Tom Clancy, The Sum of All Fears (1991) |
| 81 | 03/18 | Edwin W. Brown, In Pursuit of C.S. Lewis: Adventures in Collecting his Works (2006) |
| 82 | 03/19 | John Wyndham, The Chrysalids (1955) |
| 83 | 03/24 | CSL, “The Parthenon and the Optative” (1944) |
| 84 | 03/24 | CSL, “Answers to Questions on Christianity” (1944) |
| 85 | 03/24 | Michael Lambek, “Provincializing God? Provocations from an Anthropology of Religion” (2005) |
| 86 | 03/24 | CSL, Miracles (1943-7) |
| 87 | 03/24 | CSL, “Democratic Education” (1944) |
| 88 | 03/24 | Andrew Lazo, “‘Early Prose Joy’: A Brief Introduction (2013) |
| 89 | 03/25 | CSL, Early Prose Joy (1930) |
| 90 | 03/26 | Andrew Lazo, “Correcting the Chronology: Some Implications of ‘Early Prose Joy’” (2012) |
| 91 | 03/26 | Bruce R. Johnson, “CSL and the BBC Brains’ Trust: A Study in Resilience” (2013) |
| 92 | 03/26 | CSL, “Transposition” (1944) |
| 93 | 03/29 | Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (1962) |
| 94 | 04/01 | CSL, The Great Divorce (1944-45) |
| 95 | 04/03 | E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros (1922) |
| 96 | 04/04 | CSL, “The Man Born Blind” as “Light,” unknown date |
| 97 | 04/04 | Reinhold Niebuhr, Children of Light, Children of Darkness (1944, 1960) |
| 98 | 04/07 | CSL, “A Dream” (1944) |
| 99 | 04/07 | CSL, “Myth Became Fact” (1944) |
| 100 | 04/07 | CSL, “Blimpophobia” (1944) |
| 101 | 04/07 | CSL, “The Death of Words” (1944) |
| 102 | 04/07 | CSL, “Horrid Red Things” (1944) |
| 103 | 04/07 | CSL, “Is Theology Poetry?” (1944) |
| 104 | 04/09 | CSL, “Private Bates” (1944) |
| 105 | 04/09 | CSL, “The Inner Ring” (1944) |
| 106 | 04/11 | Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia (1977) |
| 107 | 04/16 | Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (1937) |
| 108 | 04/17 | CSL, “Religion and Science” (1945) |
| 109 | 04/17 | CSL, “Membership” (1945) |
| 110 | 04/17 | CSL, “Two Lectures” (1945) |
| 112 | 04/17 | Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957) |
| 113 | 04/20 | Charles Williams, “Chapel of the Thorn” (1912) |
| 114 | 04/22 | CSL, The Great Divorce (1944-45) |
| 115 | 04/22 | CSL, “The Grand Miracle” (1945) |
| 116 | 04/22 | CSL, Review “Who gaf me drink?: Owen Barfield, Romanticism Comes of Age” (1945) |
| 117 | 05/01 | Tom Clancy, Debt of Honor (1994) |
| 118 | 05/01 | J.R.R. Tolkien, fragment, “The Fall of Arthur” (1934?) |
| 119 | 05/06 | George MacDonald, Lilith (1895) |
| 120 | 05/13 | David C. Downing & Bruce R. Johnson, “C.S. Lewis’s Unfinished ‘Easley Fragment and his Unfinished Journey” (1927; 2011) |
| 121 | 05/13 | Paul Tillich, Against the Third Reich: Paul Tillich’s Wartime Radio Broadcasts into Nazi Germany (1942-44; 1998) |
| 122 | 05/15 | J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Arthur (1934?, 2013) |
| 123 | 05/19 | J. Aleskandr Wootton, The Eighth Square (2013) |
| 124 | 05/20 | David Mark Purdy, “Red Tights and Red Tape: Satirical Misreadings of C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters” (2013) |
| 125 | 05/22 | Malory, Le Morte D’Arthur: Volume 1 (1485) |
| 126 | 05/26 | CSL, “Charles Walter Stansby Williams (1886–1945): an obituary” (1945) |
| 127 | 05/26 | CSL, “The Laws of Nature” (1945) |
| 128 | 05/26 | CSL, “Christian Apologetics” (1945) |
| 129 | 05/26 | CSL, “The Funeral of a Great Myth” (1945?) |
| 130 | 06/08 | Morley Callaghan, That Summer in Paris (1963) |
| 131 | 06/09 | Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology (1963) |
| 132 | 06/13 | David Downing, Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism of C.S. Lewis (2005) |
| 133 | 06/17 | Malory, Le Morte D’Arthur: Volume 2 (1485) |
| 134 | 06/19 | Margaret Hannay, “The Mythology of Out of the Silent Planet” (1994) |
| 135 | 06/22 | CSL, Of This and Other Worlds (1982) |
| 136 | 06/22 | CSL, Out of the Silent Planet (1938) |
| 137 | 06/22 | David Platt, Radical (2010) |
| 138 | 06/23 | Walter Hooper, “Inspiration and Invention,” ch. 5 in Past Watchful Dragons (1971) |
| 139 | 06/25 | Verlyn Flieger, “The Sound of Silence: Language and Experience in Out of the Silent Planet” (1991) |
| 140 | 06/25 | Gregory Wolfe, “Essential Speech: Language and Myth in the Ransom Trilogy” (1991) |
| 141 | 06/25 | Stephen Metcalf, “Language and Self-Consciousness: The Making and Breaking of C.S. Lewis’ Personae” (1981) |
| 142 | 06/25 | Donald Glover, “Bent Language in Perelandra: The Storyteller’s Temptation” (1991) |
| 143 | 06/25 | Joe Christopher, “Tolkien: Narnian Exile” (1988) |
| 144 | 06/25 | Thomas L. Martin, “Merlin, Magic, and the Meta-fantastic: The Matter of That Hideous Strength” (2011) |
| 145 | 06/25 | Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book (2008) |
| 146 | 06/26 | Jared Lobdell, “CSL’s Ransom Stories and their 18th century Ancestry” (1991) |
| 147 | 06/26 | Arthur Ransome, Swallows & Amazons (1930) |
| 148 | 06/28 | CSL, The Dark Tower (c. 1938-39), with Hooper Intro |
| 149 | 06/30 | Margaret Hannay, “Arthurian and Cosmic Vision in That Hideous Strength “ (1969) |
| 150 | 06/30 | CSL, The Screwtape Letters (1940-41), read by John Cleese |
| 151 | 06/30 | Charles Ross, “Arthuriana and the Limits of C.S. Lewis’ Ariosto Marginalia,” Arthuriana 21.2 (2011) |
| 152 | 06/30 | Jonathan B. Himes, “Matter of Time: CSL’s Dark Tower MS & Composition Process,” (2011) |
| 153 | 06/30 | Jeffrey R. Thompson and John Rasp, “Did C. S. Lewis write The Dark Tower?: An Examination of the Small-Sample Properties of the Thisted-Efron Tests of Authorship” (2009) |
| 154 | 07/01 | CSL, Perelandra (1943) |
| 155 | 07/03 | Harry Lee Poe, “Shedding Light on The Dark Tower” (2007) |
| 156 | 07/03 | A.Q. Morton, “Once. A Test of Authorship Based on Words which are not Repeated in the Sample” (1986) |
| 157 | 07/06 | CSL, That Hideous Strength (1943-44) |
| 158 | 07/08 | Roland Barthes “The Death of the Author” (1968) |
| 159 | 07/09 | Irwin, “Against Intertextuality” |
| 160 | 07/09 | H.G. Wells, First Men in the Moon (1901) |
| 161 | 07/10 | Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1787) |
| 162 | 07/13 | Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818) |
| 163 | 07/17 | Matthew Dickerson, The Rood and the Torc (2014) |
| 164 | 07/18 | Terry Pratchett, Sourcery (1988) |
| 165 | 07/21 | Graham Allen, Intertextuality (2000) |
| 166 | 07/25 | Gene Wolfe, Shadow of the Torturer (1980) |
| 167 | 07/28 | Joe Christopher, “C.S. Lewis’s Lost Arthurian Poem: A Conjectural Essay” (2012) |
| 168 | 07/29 | Jared Lobdell, The Scientification Novels of C.S. Lewis: Space and Time in the Ransom Stories (2004) |
| 169 | 07/31 | Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes (1996) |
| 170 | 07/31 | Charles Williams, Taliessin Through Logres (1938) |
| 171 | 07/31 | Charles Williams, The Region of the Summer Stars (1944) |
| 172 | 08/01 | CSL & Charles Williams, Arthurian Torso (1944-45) |
| 173 | 08/05 | Gene Wolfe, Claw of the Conciliator (1981) |
| 174 | 08/15 | Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters (1988) |
| 175 | 08/16 | Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2008) |
| 176 | 08/18 | Anca Ştefan, “Notes on Contemporary Transformations of the Epistolary Fiction” (2010) |
| 177 | 08/19 | Roald Dahl, Danny, the Champion of the World (1975) |
| 178 | 08/20 | Gene Wolfe, The Sword of the Lictor (1982) |
| 179 | 08/21 | CSL, Letters to Malcolm (1963) |
| 180 | 08/27 | Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897) |
| 181 | 08/27 | Norman R. Petersen, Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul’s Narrative Worlds (1985) |
| 182 | 09/04 | Gene Wolfe, The Citadel of the Autarch (1983) |
| 183 | 09/06 | Catherine Brown, “Literature and Form” |
| 184 | 09/10 | Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things (2006) |
| 185 | 09/11 | CSL, The Screwtape Letters (1940-41) |
| 186 | 09/17 | Samuel Richardson, Pamela (1740) |
| 187 | 09/22 | Margaret J.C. Reid, The Arthurian Legend: Comparison of Treatment in Modern and Mediæval Literature (1938). |
| 188 | 09/23 | Caitlín Matthews, “The Voices of the Wells: Celtic Oral Themes in Grail Literature” |
| 189 | 09/23 | John Matthews, “Charles Williams and the Grail” (2002) |
| 190 | 09/23 | “After The Waste Land” in Beverly Taylor & Elisabeth Brewer, The Return of King Arthur: British and American Arthurian Literature Since 1800 (1983) |
| 191 | 09/29 | CSL, manuscript of “The Dark Tower” (1938) |
| 192 | 09/30 | CSL, manuscript of A Grief Observed (1961) |
| 193 | 10/10 | Gene Wolfe, The Urth of the New Sun (1987) |
| 194 | 10/17 | Guy Gavriel Kay, The Summer Tree (1984) |
| 195 | 10/19 | Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards! (1989) |
| 196 | 10/20 | Uwe-Karsten Plisch, “Introduction” to The Gospel of Thomas: Original Text With Commentary (2008) |
| 197 | 10/27 | CSL, “The Funeral of a Great Myth” (1945?) |
| 198 | 10/27 | Jerry Bergman, “C.S. Lewis: Creationist and Anti-evolutionist” (2008) |
| 199 | 10/29 | Eugene Peterson, “Soulcraft” Regent Class |
| 200 | 10/29 | Guy Gavriel Kay, The Wandering Fire (1986) |
| 201 | 10/31 | Diane Purkiss, “A Holocaust of One’s Own: The Myth of Burning Times” in The Witch in History (1996) |
| 202 | 11/11 | Don W. King, “C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Quest of Bleheris’ as Poetic Prose” (2013) |
| 203 | 11/11 | CSL, The Great Divorce (1944-45) |
| 204 | 11/13 | Roger Lancelyn Green, King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table (1953) |
| 205 | 11/14 | Guy Gavriel Kay, The Darkest Road (1986) |
| 206 | 11/16 | John Crowley, Little, Big (1981) |
| 207 | 11/18 | Diana P. Glyer, The Company They Keep (2008) |
| 208 | 11/18 | Richard B. Hays, “The Puzzle of Pauline Hermeneutics,” ch. 1 in Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (1989) |
| 209 | 11/19 | Gérard Genette, “Structuralism and Literary Criticism” (1964) |
| 210 | 11/19 | Terry Pratchett, Eric (1990) |
| 211 | 11/22 | J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Sir Orfeo (1975) |
| 212 | 11/26 | George MacDonald, Phatastes (1858) |
| 213 | 11/27 | CSL, “The Anthropological Approach” (1962) |
| 214 | 12/01 | CSL, “The Genesis of a Medieval Book” (1963) |
| 215 | 12/02 | CSL, “The Morte Darthur” (1947) |
| 216 | 12/03 | Eugene Peterson, “Jesus and Prayer” Regent Class |
| 217 | 12/06 | David Downing, “C. S. Lewis Among the Postmodernists” (1998) |
| 218 | 12/09 | Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures (1990) |
| 219 | 12/11 | Bruce Johnson, “Enchanting Luna and Militant Mars: The Shorter Planetary Fiction of C.S. Lewis” (2010) |
| 220 | 12/14 | Stephen King, Carrie (1974) |
| 221 | 12/16 | Madeleine L’Engle, Stone for a Pillow (2000) |
| 222 | 12/18 | CSL, “Edmund Spenser, 1522-99” (1954) |
| 223 | 12/19 | CSL, That Hideous Strength (1943-44) |
| 224 | 12/22 | Jeremy Dodds, trans., The Poetic Edda (13th c.; 2014) |
| 225 | 12/27 | Kath Filmer. “That Hideous 1984: The Influence of C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength on Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1985) |
| 226 | 12/28 | George Orwell, 1984 (1948) |
