Happy 62 Years to Narnia & Win a New Book (Narnia Essentials)

It was 62 years ago today that the first Narnia book was published. That book is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in case you didn’t know. These days the books are number by the order of their internal events and it is listed as second. As most of you know the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit was recently celebrated. As a result of this previous milestone (and the fact that a movie is coming out in December), there are several new books discussing Middle Earth. One of the exceptions to this is a book by Dr. Louis Markos that focuses on BOTH Tolkien’s and Lewis’s imaginary land. It’s called On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis.

Dr. Markos has previously written several books related to C.S. Lewis, including Lewis Agonistes: How C.S. Lewis Can Train Us to Wrestle with the Modern and Postmodern World and Restoring Beauty: The Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the Writings of C.S. Lewis. This new book, On the Shoulders of Hobbits, actually looks at virtue and vice by showing how the various characters in both author’s world dealt with them. The book is divided into four parts that each has four chapters. Dr. Markos examines a single theme-message-moral in each that looks at the nature of goodness and the ill effects of greed (among other topics).

Over at my C.S. Lewis Minute site you can get a chance to win a copy of On the Shoulders of Hobbits and listen to an interview I did with the author. You have to visit the special contest page to enter. Don’t delay as the deadline is Thursday, October 18th!