Welcome to Litsy!

The last 3 chapters were interesting. But this did not live up to 4 decades of being told this was a fabulous must read.

“Finally I woke from building the temple to find that the God had flown.”

This is a beautiful book...

1. Always. I want to believe that I live in a functioning democracy so I choose to act as if I do. Also, I enjoy filling bubbles and completing arrows.

2. I'm starting voice lessons (virtual) again today after a 3-year break.

#ThankfulThursday @Cosmos_Moon

#MagicalMay @Eggs
#Surprise

Just finished book 4 for the year, but I‘ve been working on this one for quite a while. This battered copy is my husband‘s that he bought in Taiwan as a teenage missionary kid. ❤️

#GratefulReads #memoir (Day 24).

A few of my favorite memoirs: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, and Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis. Can you guess which one I don't own?

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @OriginalCyn620

I spent the weekend in the mountains celebrating a good friend‘s birthday and came home to both the books I recently ordered. 😁👍🏼📚 #bookmail

These last two weeks have been a blur, between the holidays and a particularly long-running cold bug for the whole fam. Today, I'm just grateful to tackle the New Year, choosing gratitude and hope over weariness and pessimism. To quote CS Lewis, "There are far better things ahead than what we leave behind". Excited to embrace this New Year with each of you, and to find delight and comfort in the joy of literature together.

It is not settled happiness but momentary joy that glorifies the past.

Joy is not a substitute for sex; sex is very often a substitute for Joy. I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for Joy.

All Joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still 'about to be'.

While friendship has been by far the chief source of my happiness, acquaintance or general society has always meant little to me, and I cannot quite understand why a man should wish to know more people than he can make real friends of.

…the greatest service we can do to education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects, we destroy his standards, perhaps for life.

This memoir (of sorts) covers Lewis‘s early childhood through his college years. Clearly he had a brilliant mind and a vivid imagination. He was, however, a rather boring and introverted person. If you are reading this because of his “conversion” story, I must warn you that it is rather anti-climactic and only occurs in the last chapter. This was an interesting book but nothing special.

Almost done with my monthly book club commitments.

1. 41
2. I have 1 sister
3. I have 1 son who is 7 years old
4. Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters and Poor Folk by Dostoyevsky
5. Are you kidding me?!? 😳
6. ❤️💜🌈🕊 - Not bad!
7. Chocolate. No, maybe that‘s my favourite thing!
8. I moved to a foreign country by myself - not knowing a soul.
9. CATS 😻
10. Coffee
11. Surprised by Joy
12. @Itchyfeetreader , @Zelma , @Erynecki 💕

Thanks, @Moray_Reads , @Gyldholm and #HalloWhoAreYou.

I was going to move this book for the photo but then I noticed how nice it already looked sitting on top of my handbag!

This is a spiritual autobiography as told through the books Lewis encountered in his youth. Unfortunately, most of these books were classics I‘d never read so it was sometimes difficult to follow.

I found this to be rather academic but there were certainly some gems to be found. Also, I had to forgive a #MisogynyMinute or two.

“Liking an author may be as involuntary and improbable as falling in love.”

“A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere...”

I️ always think of C. S. Lewis as a #joyful author. #yesvember17 @Libby1

There have been many such moments of recognition on Litsy. 😊 #blameitonlitsy

I'm going to be starting this soon. C.S. Lewis for the win.

Day 19//#riotgrams #opposites courtesy of CS Lewis. @bookriot

About halfway through listening to this one- man I hate how messed up boarding school was. I don't want Lewis to have had to live through any of that. Not that it's the point, nor that this is at all a self-pitying memoir, just ugh.
#nonfiction #autobiography

And with that plunge back into my own past there arose at once, almost like heartbreak, the memory of Joy itself, the knowledge that I had once had what I had now lacked for years, that I was returning at last from exile and desert lands to my own country; and the distance of the Twilight of the Gods and the distance of my own past Joy, both unattainable, flowed together into a single, unedurable sense of desire and loss...

"The universe rings true whenever you fairly test it." I love C.S. Lewis! This book is a bit different than his other works of nonfiction, but still very insightful, and I'm learning a lot about his childhood. Trying to get a jumpstart on today's topic! #inspiring #photoadaynov16

"Tea should be taken in solitude" what a wonderful quote by C. S. Lewis. A poignant thing to keep in mind as a good book finds its way to your hands.

Easily my favorite author. This is a first edition first impression which I am honored to own.