Reading WHY I BELIEVE IN NARNIA provides a panoramic view of C. S. Lewis' multi-faceted genius and its application in fields as diverse as social criticism and children's literature. WHY I BELIEVE gathers reviews and essays that span Prof. James Como's many years as a preeminent Lewis scholar, to which the author of Remembering C.S. Lewis and Branches to Heaven has added several new entries. Chapters range from reviews of critical books, documentaries and movies to evaluations of Lewis's books to biographical analysis. In addition to close-up looks, Como reflects on the "big picture" of the...

With conversation and its rhetoric as the axel of his wheel and culture as its rim, Professor Como examines many spokes that connect one to the other, from teaching and life in higher education, to President Obama, Mickey Mantle, movies, LBJ, Peru, Shakespeare, and C. S. Lewis. Alive with wit, direct address, rich experience, and much learning worn lightly, Como's approaches include scholarship, journalism, how-to instruction, criticism, and anecdote. Yet always at the center is how our conversations build our culture.

Of Edmund Spenser, C. S. Lewis wrote, ""his work is one, like a growing thing, a tree with branches to heaven and roots to hell. And in between these two extremes comes all the multiplicity of human life."" This book seeks to demonstrate the aptness of that quotation when applied to Lewis himself. From his deepest emotional and psychological landscape, to his prevailing temperament, and then to his training, Lewis marshaled his magnificent rhetorical skills on behalf of his vocation: to make Christianity a reasonable and inviting alternative to doubters. In this--and through the many genres...