On C.S. Lewis

Thomas Kidd favorably reviews Alister McGrath's C.S. Lewis - A Life:

Alister McGrath's C.S. Lewis: A Life comes with endorsements from Eric Metaxas, Timothy Keller, N.T. Wright, and perhaps most weightily given the topic, from my soon-to-be Baylor colleague Alan Jacobs, who calls it “a meticulously researched, insightful, fair-minded, and honest account of a fascinating man’s life.” As I have written earlier, I admire Jacobs' own Lewis biography, The Narnian, and his assessment of McGrath's book is apt. McGrath's book is a judicious and accessible treatment of Lewis's remarkable but controversial career. ....

This is not fawning hagiography, but an honest, charitable assessment of a great but flawed man.

The aspect of the book that I found most fascinating is Lewis's handling of fame and his role as a public intellectual. Until World War II, Lewis was a little-known Oxford scholar, but The Screwtape Letters and his wartime talks on the BBC launched him into international fame for which he was ill prepared. ....

I liked Jacobs' The Narnian very much. It is my favorite of all those I have read about Lewis. I have begun to read McGrath and it thus far seems very good.

C.S. Lewis, Public Intellectual