A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C. S. Lewis

Short Review: This is an excellent companion to McGrath's new bio of Lewis. They do supplements one another well without treading over the same ground. McGrath is heavy on the details of Lewis' life and is more interested in digging into the details. Brown however wants to let Lewis speak for himself. So there is very little psychoanalyzing of Lewis. Instead there is a quote or reference from one of Lewis' letters or books on almost every page. That would seem to be off putting to me, but it is done so well that it feels like we are getting an inside look at Lewis' writing, like one the very best types of Literature classes where you actually understand much better than before the class.

Brown structures the first half of the book roughly around Lewis' Surprised by Joy (Lewis' own memoir of coming to faith) and the last third around A Grief Observed (his raw journals after his wife's death).

My only real complaint is that like seemingly all other biographies of Lewis, there is not much about his spiritual life between conversion and his marriage to Joy. There are hints (a chapter on the Inklings, local church involvement, a mere mention of a long term spiritual director) but what I would like is much more on how Lewis grew spiritually between conversion and his rise to Christian superstar.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/life-observed/