false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170358052m/49221.jpg 49221 23 C.S. Lewis joined the human race when his wife, Joy Gresham, died of cancer. Lewis, the Oxford don whose Christian apologetics make it seem like he's got an answer for everything, experienced crushing doubt for the first time after his wife's tragic death. <I>A Grief Observed</I> contains his epigrammatic reflections on that period: "Your bid--for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity--will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high," Lewis writes. "Nothing will shake a man--or at any rate a man like me--out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself." This is the book that inspired the film <I>Shadowlands</I>, but it is more wrenching, more revelatory, and more real than the movie. It is a beautiful and unflinchingly honest record of how even a stalwart believer can lose all sense of meaning in the universe, and how he can gradually regain his bearings. <I>--Michael Joseph Gross</I> 894384 1961 A Grief Observed total:3555|5:1480|4:1349|3:621|2:90|1:15| 3555 14854 5284 395 5 5 false false Wed Jul 03 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Tue Sep 02 07:09:44 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 02 08:42:21 -0700 2008 A Grief Observed seemed to 'find' me when I needed consoling insight after my brother died; C. S. Lewis was forever after a friend who not only knew and understood something very profound, but also had been there for me when I needed him.

A Grief Obs...more...]]> 5 3 false false Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Thu Feb 26 10:36:08 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 01 11:01:23 -0800 2009 It's not easy to give a rational review of this book. It's something like a mirror, reading that wo...more...]]> 5 2 false false Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Tue Sep 09 15:40:18 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 09 15:41:38 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Thu Jan 10 19:27:46 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 03 10:24:54 -0800 2008
"I once read the sentence 'I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache an about lying awake.' That's true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to kee...more...]]> 5 2 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Tue Jan 06 13:42:26 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 13:46:47 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Feb 05 12:52:45 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 12:58:56 -0800 2009 A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis soon after finding out my mother's husband had passed away. I wanted to get an idea of what my mother was going through--what it was like to lose the most cherished of loved ones, one's own spouse.

A Grief Observed is about a real man's (Lewis')...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 01 16:33:52 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 01 16:41:24 -0800 2009
But the fact of ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 14:59:07 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 15:16:19 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1980 Sun Jul 27 19:21:55 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 27 19:25:30 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Jul 18 14:44:13 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 25 18:50:48 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Apr 01 17:42:57 -0700 2008 Wed May 21 12:33:52 -0700 2008 Shadowlands which is a depiction of Lewis and his wife.]]> 4 0 false false Mon Mar 23 09:56:28 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 09:56:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Nov 16 17:45:02 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 20 19:57:44 -0800 2008 3
Memorable quotes:

"I look up at the night sky. Is anything more certain than that in all those vast times and spaces, if I were allowed to search them, I should...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Sep 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 07:58:51 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 09 05:31:48 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Thu Sep 04 04:14:12 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 04 04:14:12 -0700 2008 4 1 false false Thu Mar 27 08:49:49 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 27 08:55:34 -0700 2008 4 1 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Mar 13 14:05:28 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 13 14:07:21 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 26 12:29:12 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 26 12:32:28 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 22 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 19:20:28 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 22 15:31:19 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Nov 24 04:29:11 -0800 2007 Mon Nov 26 15:23:29 -0800 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=49221