"The Screwtape Letters" as a popular book
Posted by tom | May 5, 2009C.S. Lewis comments in the Preface to the 1961 edition of The Screwtape Letters:
If you gauged the amount of Bible reading in England by the number of Bibles sold, you would go far astray. Sales of The Screwtape Letters, in their own little way, suffer from a similar ambiguity. … It is even, as I have noticed with a chastened smile, the sort that gravitates towards spare bedrooms. … -- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, NY: New York, Touchstone, 1996, 1961 original edition, p.5).
What book from the Christian scene would you place a similar seat of honor? Today, would it be Christian Classics given as gifts or purchased as must haves for a Christian library, such as Augustine's Confessions, Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presense of God, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Hannah Hurnard's Hinds' Feet in High Places, J.I. Packer's Knowing God, Martyrs Mirror, Pilgrim's Progress, Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline? OR do we only purchase books and keep books we intend to read (to address particular concerns or as part of discussion groups)? Or do we not have a culture which leaves Christian books lying around?
