Tuesday Tome - A New Lewis Biography

I'm adding Alister McGrath's biography of C. S. Lewis to my library after reading good comments about it in an article by A. N. Wilson. It must be gratifying for McGrath to get such high marks from Wilson, who, himself, is a much-respected biographer of Lewis. Wilson writes:

There have been plenty of biographies of Lewis—I once wrote one myself—but I do not think there has been a better one than Alister McGrath’s. He is a punctilious and enthusiastic reader of all Lewis’s work—the children’s stories, the science fiction, the Christian apologetics and the excellent literary criticism and literary history. He is from Northern Ireland, as Lewis was himself, and he is especially astute about drawing out the essentially Northern Irish qualities of this very odd man.

The release date (February 2013) of McGrath's book, C. S. Lewis: A Life - Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet, coincides with the 50th anniversary of Lewis' death. The book runs a substantial 448 pages and will be followed up with another shorter volume, The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis (April 2013). Will there be anything new to read in these many pages? Publisher's Weekly says, "Yes."

"...times have changed and evangelical sentiments have matured. McGrath offers a new and at times shocking look into the complicated life of this complex figure, in a deeply researched biography. The author takes us headlong into the heart of a Lewis we’ve known little about: his unconventional affair with Mrs. Jane Moore; his hostile and deceptive relationship with his father; his curiosity about the sensuality of cruelty. McGrath navigates the reader through these messy themes, ultimately landing us onto the solid ground of Lewis’s postconversion legacy. He shows with skill, sympathy, dispassion, and engaging prose that Lewis, like the rest of us, did the best he could with the hand he was dealt. But he got over it, as must all those who would prefer a Lewis without shadows."

And here's what McGrath has to say about his new book: