One of my son's favorite books (favorite author). He had me read it as well, it really makes you think.

This is a great book, amazing quality, and great for a every day read or even with a book club

I enjoyed reading this in my “year of CS Lewis”. I feel like his use of our knowledge of God and Satan/demons from the Bible truly informs his natural imaginative storytelling ability. He didn’t write in a formal sense to be regarded as scripture, yet there are so many spiritual truths in this text to open our eyes to what is going on around us in the spiritual world.

This book is a superb at looking how bad habits and sin creeps into someone’s life , turning them from the Enemy to the Darkness. As two demons discusses the best way to tempt mankind and the subtle was ways we lose ourselves?

C.S. Lewis is probably the seminal author on scholarly Christian fantasy, but the more nonfiction his work gets, the less coherent his points get. The Narnia books work so well as Christian allegory because they are focused on a narrative string that makes you think less of the moral relativism he peppers into his nonfiction writing. This one is kind of in the middle, and its hard to fault it for its major problem because it's also the most coherent point in the book. The head demon is writing a series of letters to his dear nephew, Wormwood, on the ways to corrupt a man. But since he's always relating it to Christianity and Christianity in itself is out of vogue in this manner, there's often no footing for the reader to grab onto. A lot of times I will read what Lewis says two or three times and I still can't understand what he's saying, but I do get the main points. The whole idea is that the demon is trying to convert the man through subtle means, not to simply get him to become evil but to do a "death by a thousand cuts" approach, gradually chipping away at him until he submits to evil. Part of the reason it's harder to relate to is that the evils in the modern world are so much worse with things like gang violence and active shooters, to compare them to a man who has simply been sent to hell because he failed to go to church on Sunday almost seems trite. And yet, despite that, the fact that Lewis is so dead set on his concept is what makes so many other things in his books often feel creepy and prophetic. Because even though the actions of the demons in the book might not ring true, the means through which they do it seem to unveil more universal truths about humanity in general seem blatantly obvious and disturbingly real. Some examples of brilliant quotes in this book include: "Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula." "While the spirit can be directed toward an eternal object, the animal side is subject to the undulations or flow of time and change" and: "God wants men to be concerned with what they do, our business is to make them concerned with what happens to them" When cut into quotes and aphorisms it is one of the most brilliant books ever written, and full of cheeky humor that makes the seriousness of the content more palatable. You can strip the Christian allegory out of Lewis' writing entirely and you will still be able to extract universal golden truths about the nature of evil itself. At the same time, I have to be totally honest that it often feels that his obsessive nature over "the word of God" in and of itself and the general innocuousness of some of these inner machinations, combined with the fact that it is often written in impenetrable mid-1900s UK slang that something gets lost in translation. But since the whole point of the book is the innocuous facade on which evil picks away at man itself I can't really fault it entirely on the means he is using. It's only to state that while the book is a clever idea with some disturbing moral truths it can also be hard to digest in its entirely for the aforementioned reasons. Perhaps if Lewis was less of a Christian apologist and wrote solely on the concept of universal evil he might have struck even bigger chord.

My son is reading this book for his college class at Liberty University. CS Lewis has a lot of books he can read for credit in his psychology class. He loves this one and is planning on buying more of Cs Lewis' books soon.

A curious and brilliant way to encourage moral reflection, movement away from sin and all its empty promises, and towards a life in Christ. I think I could read it 100 times over and benefit each and every time.

I've read this before (around 5 years ago), but this time I enjoyed it way more than last time, and I think I was able to follow Lewis' thoughts much better. In sum, this book was full of insight after insight about how we as humans work, how we are variously and subtly tempted in the Christian life, and even who God (referred to as 'the Enemy' throughout) is and how we works for the good of his people. Many might think this is mainly fiction, or satire, or just a strange book that is about how demons might work, but the book is much more profound than that. It most certainly isn't just fiction; it includes some satire, but isn't mainly such; and Lewis does use the letters from one demon to another as his template; but in reality, this is just as clear and profound as Lewis' other classic works on Christianity-such as Mere Christianity. In fact, I would say that if read slowly, this book is just as profound. Just instead of it being longer chapters with longer arguments, each of the 31 chapters in this book has its own main argument (or multiple) that really shed much insight on the Christian faith. Of the 31 chapters, I marked 15 of them as really great and worth revisiting over and over. I will keep this book always in close range on my bookshelf simply because it is so full of practical advice and illustrations about the Christian life. I will not quote or list most of the insights here-just for the sake of time-but here are the main topics that he talked about. I will word them as coming from evil's perspective, and will put the chapter number in parenthesis. - Keep the Christian "in the stream" and not really thinking about bigger things (1) - Use the War, but watch out for how the Enemy can use it (5) - Use anxiety about the Future; make him lack self-awareness (6) - Make him extreme on either side (it doesn't really matter much) on Politics (7) - Use Pleasures (even though that's Enemy territory), and make him a nominal believer (9) - Make him spend his time, all throughout life, doing and getting Nothing (12) - Manipulate his 'Humility' (14) - Keep him from seeing the Present and eternity; focus him on the Future (15) - How to use sex and marriage (18) - Make him think he has ownership on time; how to twist the word 'my' (21) - How to use this quest for the Historical Jesus (23) - Make him crave novelty; twist his desire (25) - Change the Christian idea of 'Love' for the negative idea of 'Unselfishness' (26) - Use the world slowly over time to attach him to the world (28) - Use a little Fatigue; and twist the idea of what is 'real' (30) These are the main insights about the Christian life I listed. Although, there are many more. SPOILER ALERT BELOW: Finally, I simply want to mention the last chapter. The last chapter was different as it was not about how to tempt the Christian man because he suddenly died. Rather, it was about one demon (frustratingly) explaining what happened to him at those moments after death. In short, this chapter was beautiful. It really was. Almost made me cry tears of joy. Lewis so clearly and cleverly--even through the disgusted pen of a fictional demon!--and so wonderfully captures the Christian's final deliverance from all evil, how the Christian will see all the angels that helped him along the way, and especially the moment when the Christian will finally see God himself, Jesus Christ, and be finally home. Again, the last chapter is beautiful. And it is a perfect ending to the book. In sum, although it uniquely is a book containing 31 letters from one demon to the other, it is super applicable, insightful, clever, and even beautiful as it shows who God is and the future he has for his people. Without a doubt, I would wholeheartedly recommend the book. Read it as slowly as it takes; take it in; and see the shining glory of God, especially as it is contrasted with the backdrop of the darkness.