Book Recommendation: A Year with C. S. Lewis

A few years ago, for Christmas (maybe during our engagement?), Sonja got me a book: A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. It's got a small excerpt from one of Lewis' books for each day - it's like getting your daily dose of Lewis. I like it because it's easier to digest a small snippet of his writing. But, the format is also nice in that often over the course of a week you'll read one continuous section out of one of his books, it's just broken up into small chunks. I've been enjoying it lately and thought that I should pass on the recommendation.

Here's one excerpt that really made Sonja and I think. It's from the June 29 reading:

We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.

[From Mere Christianity]