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Planet Narnia
- The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
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Brilliant Assessment of the Narnia Series
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This remarkable poem, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I, was Spenser's finest achievement. The first epic poem in modern English, The Faerie Queene combines dramatic narratives of chivalrous adventure with exquisite and picturesque episodes of pageantry. At the same time, Spenser is expounding a deeply-felt allegory of the eternal struggle between Truth and Error....
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C. S. Lewis
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Deeper Heaven
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C. S. Lewis' Ransom Trilogy, better known as "the Space Trilogy", is a much-neglected and yet critically important part of Lewis's works. It has captivated and bewildered readers and listeners since its publication, and though hundreds of books about Lewis have been written, few seek to navigate the maze that is Lewis' "space-travel story". These books are a distillation in novel form of one of Lewis' favorite subjects, a subject whose melody is woven into almost everything that Lewis ever wrote: the medieval model of the cosmos.
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Insightful
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Bandersnatch
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C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Inklings met each week to read and discuss each other's work-in-progress, offering both encouragement and blistering critique. How did these conversations shape the books they were writing? How does creative collaboration enhance individual talent? And what can we learn from their example? Bandersnatch offers an inside look at the Inklings of Oxford, and a seat at their table at the Eagle and Child pub.
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The Inklings and the Creative Process Opened Up
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I hope more of Lewis's scholastic stuff is coming
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Set in the pre-Christian world of Glome on the outskirts of Greek civilization, it is a tale of two princesses: the beautiful Psyche, who is loved by the god of love himself, and Orual, Psyche's unattractive and embittered older sister, who loves Psyche with a destructive possessiveness. Her frustration and jealousy over Psyche's fate sets Orual on the troubled path of self-discovery. Lewis's last work of fiction, this is often considered his best by critics.
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Gripping, emotionally jarring, and elegant!
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The Fellowship
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C. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J. R. R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met weekly in Lewis' Oxford rooms and a nearby pub. They read aloud from works in progress, argued about anything that caught their fancy, and gave one another invaluable companionship, inspiration, and criticism.
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If You Love Literature...
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An Experiment in Criticism
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Why do we read literature and how do we judge it? C. S. Lewis' classic An Experiment in Criticism springs from the conviction that literature exists for the joy of the reader and that books should be judged by the kind of reading they invite. He argues that "good reading", like moral action or religious experience, involves surrender to the work in hand and a process of entering fully into the opinions of others: "in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself."
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A Lively and Brilliant Book, Expertly Performed
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The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
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Four adventurous siblings - Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie - step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change...and a great sacrifice.
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Sound level a small problem
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Nine essential works by C. S. Lewis in one deluxe audio edition: Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, Miracles, The Problem of Pain, A Grief Observed, The Abolition of Man, The Weight of Glory, and George MacDonald.
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Amazing collection!
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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that one of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming totalitarianism can't happen in their country. Many American Christians are making that mistake today, sleepwalking through the erosion of our freedoms. Live Not by Lies will wake them and equip them for the long resistance.
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A Must Read For All Christians!
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The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis
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C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the 20th century. Many know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker?
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Excellent
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The Four Loves
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In this remarkable recording, C. S. Lewis shows why millions of readers have acclaimed him the greatest spokesman for Christianity in the 20th century. In a resonant, baritone voice, Lewis explores the nature of the four Greek words that are translated love in English: storge (affection), philia (friendship), eros (sexual or romantic love) and agape (selfless love).
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Insightful Views on Love
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The revered author’s definitive collection of short fiction, which explores enduring spiritual and science fiction themes such as space, time, reality, fantasy, God, and the fate of humankind. As powerful, inventive, and profound as his theological and philosophical works, The Dark Tower reveals another side of Lewis’s creative mind and his longtime fascination with reality and spirituality. It is ideal listening for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis’s longtime friend and colleague.
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Buyer beware... incomplete works
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By: C. S. Lewis
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The Truth and Beauty
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The words of Jesus can be as mysterious as they are familiar. For those seeking greater understanding of the Gospels through storytelling and poetry comes this book by Andrew Klavan, who chronicles his own inspiring, late-in-life journey to achieve a fresh perspective and deep connection to Jesus' most well-known and complex biblical passages.
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Keep writing non-fiction AK
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By: Andrew Klavan
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Strange New World
- How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution
- By: Carl R. Trueman, Ryan T. Anderson - foreword
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- Unabridged
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How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how should the church respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman discusses how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of “expressive individualism.” Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas.
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Read and reread
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By: Carl R. Trueman, and others
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The Narnian
- The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis
- By: Alan Jacobs
- Narrated by: Alan Jacobs
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Abridged
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The White Witch, Aslan, fauns and talking beasts, centaurs and epic battles between good and evil: these have become a part of our collective imagination through the classic volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia. Yet who was the man who created this world? This audiobook attempts to unearth the making of the first Narnian, C. S. Lewis himself.
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C.S. Lewis, lover of fairy tales
- By RoamingChile on 01-20-06
By: Alan Jacobs
Publisher's Summary
For over half a century, scholars have labored to show that C. S. Lewis' famed but apparently disorganized Chronicles of Narnia have an underlying symbolic coherence, pointing to such possible unifying themes as the seven sacraments, the seven deadly sins, and the seven books of Spenser's Faerie Queene. None of these explanations has won general acceptance, and the structure of Narnia's symbolism has remained a mystery.
Michael Ward has finally solved the enigma. In Planet Narnia, he demonstrates that medieval cosmology, a subject which fascinated Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the seven novels. Drawing on the whole range of Lewis' writings, Ward reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the characteristics of the seven medieval planets - Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn - planets which Lewis described as "spiritual symbols of permanent value". Using these seven symbols, Lewis secretly constructed the Chronicles so that in each book the plot-line, the ornamental details, and, most important, the portrayal of the Christ-figure of Aslan, all serve to communicate the governing planetary personality.
Planet Narnia is a groundbreaking study that will provoke a major revaluation not only of the Chronicles, but of Lewis' whole literary and theological outlook.
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What listeners say about Planet Narnia
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Charles
- 07-29-19
Fascinating
For me, as for many people, Lewis has played an important part in forming my reading habits and even my worldview. I have loved the Narnia books since childhood, though my love cooled somewhat on learning about Tolkien’s estimation of them. More recently, I have preferred the Ransom trilogy and especially some of the classic works of apologetics. Perhaps most of all, I have loved The Discarded Image, which has shaped my own professional and academic work in Renaissance music theory.
Michael Ward has completely rekindled my interest in the Narnia books, which fortuitously coincides with my older children’s reading the books for the first time. Literary scholarship is a bit outside of my usual listening habits, which tend to fiction, history, and science, but this book does a terrific job of laying out a bold claim and meticulously drawing connections between the Narnia books, Lewis’s poetry and scholarly writings, and his medieval sources. To a non-expert, the argument seems unanswerable. Viewing the Chronicles through the lens of the discarded worldview of planetary influences provides a whole new dimension to the story.
The reader does an excellent job. I would recommend this book to any admirer of Lewis.
8 people found this helpful
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- B
- 10-08-20
Beautiful and Academic
This is a beautifully done examination of Lewis! While this book is noticeably academic, it is performed well, and progressed smoothly between sections. If I had a critique, it would be that I wanted to hear more! I am looking forward to my next reading of the Narnia septet and delving into Lewis further.
3 people found this helpful
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- Albrecht
- 02-13-20
Incredible
This was an exhaustive study of the Lewis corpus.. This author is an incredible scholar; siting examples of Lewis’ other writings, the authors he admired , authors he criticized, Bible references! You may need a dictionary handy to look up the terms he eloquently uses with ease. I wish my education had included the depth and range of the author’s. If you thought CS Lewis was brilliant before reading this book you will be delighted to discover more. I highly recommend this book. The reader was wonderful- pleasant voice and cadence.
3 people found this helpful
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- Ken
- 05-05-22
After this, I find myself listening to Narnia and Ransom cycle for the first time
This is a scholarly book of Literary Criticism by a well-credentialed scholar and professor. Though he is also an ordained minister, this is not a book about Lewis’s faith as such, though it does discuss Christological themes. It is a grand introduction to imaginative reading and the medieval world view, so important to Lewis in his scholarship, poetry, and fiction. It has made my enjoyment of Narnia anew, as a child enchanted by it. It also got me interested in his poetry.
1 person found this helpful
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- Lynn Maudlin
- 03-25-21
A Detailed and Well-presented Argument
In Planet Narnia, Dr Michael Ward provides a detailed and richly-footnoted argument (although the footnotes aren't included in the audiobook) for C.S. Lewis employing a Ptolemaic cosmology in his beloved series, The Chronicles of Narnia. If you're the kind of person who wants all the arguments considered and they fascinate you, you'll likely enjoy this book. I think Michael Ward is correct in his assertion and I find his argument compelling.
But if you primarily want the gist of his argument without all the detailed references to Lewis's scholarly works, his poetry, and particularly the Ransom trilogy, or Ward's explanation of what other Lewis scholars have thought and why they missed this insight, etc., you might prefer to listen to Dr Ward himself give a series of 12 lectures, each about 20 minutes long, called "C.S. Lewis: Christology and Cosmology," also available here on Audible.
1 person found this helpful
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- Brianna Ledford
- 02-25-21
great commentary on C.S. Lewis's works.
An insightful look into the process of Lewis's writing style, and immensely useful for upcoming writers looking into weaving mythology into their own works.
1 person found this helpful
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- Uncle Iroh
- 07-07-22
By Jove
By Jove I think he's got it. Excellent theory and I think it is spot on. Worth a listen if you enjoy C. S. Lewis' works
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- Trent
- 01-10-22
Intriguing and excellently performed
I can't say I'm as completely sold as the author wants me to be; however, the presentation of the argument is flawless and it made me want to read more Lewis, which can hardly be a bad thing.
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- Sandy Egg O
- 06-26-21
A different take on
A little different take on the seven stories which make up the stories of Narnia.
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- Mrs L.
- 01-27-21
There is this weird replay in Mercury BUT..
...otherwise it's an excellent reading of this fine work of scholarship.
However, I would recommend having the book within reach, so that the more complex parts may be listened to with the text. Anyone coming to this having read only the Narnia Chronicles will find they have much more to catch up on!
1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-27-20
Riveting
An in depth exploration of CS Lewis’ world. I do need to listen again with a dictionary, as the vocabulary is in the doctorate range, but the voyage through Narnia is too gripping to bother with that at the first listen.
1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 03-24-22
Excellent and persuasive
I’ve been a Lewis fan for several years and this is the best book I’ve ever read about him or his thought. The central thesis is that Lewis wrote each Narnia book to embody a different planet of the medieval cosmos. Lewis was in love with medieval astronomy and wrote about it extensively in his own academic work. This book is an excellent guide not only to Narnia but also to his Cosmic Trilogy and works of literary criticism, to build up an understanding of Lewis’s thought more broadly. This version is also exceptionally well read.
Would definitely recommend!