I love back-to-school week! A little while ago, I talked about the First Days of School in my Garden Gate Summer Note. A “Garden Gate Summer” is my own term for that blessed return of summer, even as the earth is tilting away from the sun. I love student nervousness and open questions, new clothes and pep rallies, varsity games and the inevitable staple of a new academic year: a bouncy castle (that’s one of my superstar past students cheering at centre in this archival photo, international dodgeball sensation Halen Skye).
We are certainly not experiencing anything like what old folks around here used to call an Indian Summer–though I am still holding on to hope and have bought tickets to an outdoor Twenty One Pilots concert on PEI’s North Shore tomorrow. I mean, one of my favourite bands in the world coming to the land of Anne? How could I miss it. They’ll be joined by Down With Webster, Kaleo, and a host of local bands. The Saturday night show closes with Sombr–a kind of newish emo vampire pop singing, heavy on the brooding–and, of all people, Natasha Beddingfield. I will prepare for four seasons of weather and try to keep up with my punk son and niblings. Here is a taste of 21 Pilots heading back to school:
It is all a bit ambitious. I’m absolutely wiped from all of the minute and major moments of connection in classrooms and on campus this week. My screen is increasingly filled with slides and spreadsheets. And I also have a weekend crowded with chances to talk about my new book, The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis.
Right now, I’m planning a discussion with the Harbor Online Community tonight at 7pm ET. My cousin, the newly doctored Rev. Dawn Dickieson, is one of the leaders of this innovative and inviting gathering of the curious and the faithful.
I met with one of the Harbor book clubs a couple of years ago to talk about The Screwtape Letters, and it was a highlight of the season for me. My sense is that not a few of the folks in that community have been hurt within the church or in the countless casualties of the current culture war, where spiritual life is challenged, coerced, merchandized, politicized, negated, or caricaturized.
My hope is that what I write about and talk about will help us see how C.S. Lewis–without ignoring his context or making him a plaster saint–helps us see further and imagine spiritual life in ways that are greater than we ever knew.
You can find the full Instagram post from @onlineharbor below. The Harbor website will get you connected if you would like to join in, or send me a note.
And, I have my first on-the-ground book launch! The generous folks at the Summerside Rotary Library are opening up a space for me to talk about The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis. I’m impressed to say that there will even be tidbits, refreshments as they call it. There’s more of a story about Summerside for me to tell sometime. For now, if you happen to be within striking distance of Summerside, PEI, we’d love to see you Sunday at 2pm.
Now, I’m back to editing video, answering advising emails, and thinking about the best way to set up tonight’s discussion. All the best to you, dear reader!
I believe in open access scholarship. Because of this, since 2011 I have made A Pilgrim in Narnia free with nearly 1,000 posts on faith, fiction, and fantasy. Please consider sharing my work so others can enjoy it.
If you are not in North America, you may not know that there are some border tensions between the USA and its closest cultural cousin, Canada. Before last week, apparently, the wildfires that devastated our forests and consumed our towns have irresponsibly sent clouds of smoke to the south, without a permit. In the early ’80s, LA was the 4th largest Canadian city, and even still we play in your films and add our own jazz hands twist to your arts scene. And yet, a trade war. Even as our oil, potatoes, and scientists find their way into American cars, French fries, and research institutes, it seems that we Canadians have been unfair in our trading practices. It sounds odd, I know, but when it comes to kitchen tables and corners stores, the war is real.
Even for us here on the ground, it is a bit hard to believe. Camping this summer, I had Bostonians to the right of me and Texans to the left of me, and still all seemed okay. Accents differed, and tastes in music, but in each campsite the sparks went up to meet the arboreal atmosphere in much the same way. It is difficult to feel at war when tossing a soggy ball across the swimming pool while wearing bathing shorts. Our international brotherhood, it seems, was somewhat illicit. They apologized for all the things on the news, and I apologized for everything else (being Canadian). And then we seemed okay.
Somewhere in the midst, of all of this, my book has been lost. The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis, as an Oxford University Press book is, naturally, printed in the United States. Since our Aug 11th launch date, it has been available to Americans–and the Kindle is still on sale for $13.19 USD, and the list price is $35 USD (I have a 30% off promo code for the UK and US, so send me an email). In the US, my Kindle is still a “Top New Release” for 20th-century Literary Criticism–a category just ahead of the list on Tegestology through the Ages in popularity, but still kind of neat.
The book even has its first review!
Thanks to the clearly adept, intelligent, and book-chic “Sky-blue,” whoever you are–and kudos to your parents for giving you such a creative name.
Friends have sent me their box opening images and notes from upstate New York, Indianapolis, Indiana, Houston, Texas, Cambridge, Mass., London, England, and Iași, Poland. The word is out in the US and around the world.
But what about Flin Flon, Manitoba, Dildo, Newfoundland, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Alberta, Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, Québec, or our own Crapaud, PEI?
In Canada, my home and native land, only the Kindle and Kobo have been available. It’s a puzzle–though academic libraries can access any chapter or the whole book (just ask). It was good fun in August to share my experience of unpacking my new book, The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis in a front-porch Instagram/Facebook video, but we still can’t get copies at our local bookstores.
Now, I’m not saying that my book has become a major pawn in the battle between the power brokers from the President’s White House and the advisors that gather at the Prime Minister’s favourite booth at Tim Hortons. I’m sure it is a coincidence….
In the meantime, though, I have good news! Books are starting to arrive at Canadian warehouses. I got an encouraging email today from New York that The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis is on the move. They will re-push the print copy to Amazon and Indigo, and, the Charlottetown Bookmark has been unwavering in its listing at $38.50 (which is less than Amazon). Another thanks to local booksellers–always check there first.
My next post will have news of a couple of local book launch events. I’ll be at the Undiscovered C.S. Lewis conference near Portland, OR Sep 23-27 as well.
Thanks, everyone, for hanging in there and sending the encouraging tweets, pics, and reviews.
What’s It All About?
With book sales exceeding 200 million copies, a billion-dollar film industry, and a bookshelf of critical, philosophical, and popular works, C.S. Lewis is at once the beloved author of The Chronicles of Narnia and a leading twentieth-century English-speaking Christian public intellectual. Given the sheer diversity of Lewis’s writing, what holds all this together? What is the beating heart of Lewis’ work?
Among C.S. Lewis scholars, there is near-unanimous agreement with British philosopher Owen Barfield’s claim that, “what Lewis thought about everything was secretly present in what he said about anything.” In The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis, Brenton D. G. Dickieson argues that what Lewis reveals throughout his writings is a cross-shaped, or cruciform, spirituality. As an instinctive and integrative writer of spiritual theology, Lewis believed that “death is at the root of the whole matter”—that God’s self-surrender in Christ through death on a cross and subsequent resurrection is the normative pattern for a healthy spiritual life. This death-and-resurrection pattern unites Lewis’s Christian thought and produces a hopeful and evocative spirituality that is embedded in his poetry and prose.
By reconsidering him as a spiritual theologian, Dickieson uncovers a six-point “Logic of Cruciformity” in Lewis’s apologetics that is embedded in narrative form throughout his other works. The shape of the cross is the shape of Lewis’s spiritual theology. With the “upsidedownedness” of childlike wonder, Lewis reveals what Dickieson calls a “Theology of the Small,” filled with “sacred paradoxes” and offering a hopeful, transformative invitation to spiritual life.
I believe in open access scholarship. Because of this, since 2011 I have made A Pilgrim in Narnia free with nearly 1,000 posts on faith, fiction, and fantasy. Please consider sharing my work so others can enjoy it.
It was good fun last week to share my experience of unpacking my new book, The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis. The front-porch video got a few thousand spins on social media and hundreds of comments from friends. It was a nice moment to share with my family on the eve of Launch Day (Tuesday, Aug 11th).
Launch Day arrive in the United States of America without a hitch, I believe. Folks have been able to order The Spiritual Imagination wherever shiny books are sold, and I was able to purchase and post a pair of paper copies for the Marion E. Wade Centre, where so much of my earliest research took place. The Kindle is still 40% off in the US ($13.19), and it is still a “Top New Release” for 20th-century Literary Criticism–a category just ahead of Yak Husbandry in popularity, but still kind of neat. It even has its first review:
Thanks to the clearly adept, intelligent, and book-chic “Sky-blue,” whoever you are–and kudos to your parents for giving you such a creative name.
All systems in the countdown to launch in Chicago, New York, Fargo, and Houston are “go and nominal.” We have takeoff and everything is well in the United States–a relatively rare news heading item these days.
But what about Vancouver, Montreal, Iqaluit, and Cavendish? How did Launch Day go in Canada?
Here, it seems, in brave Canada with its wind-swept buffalo, last-hope sports teams, and secretive ketchup chips–well, here, we have had a failure to launch. We haven’t even walked out to the launchpad in slow motion yet.
It’s a problem I noted a few weeks ago, but one that hasn’t been fixed yet. Even today, nearly a week after it was launched, Amazon is out of stock of my book and still doesn’t have a listing priced. It’s selling well above list price ($38.50 in Canada) because it’s shipping from the US. And although the Kindle/Kobo lanuch went well, my book on Indigo.ca is authorless; on Amazon.ca, I’m listed as “University 1000 Coordinator and Bis Coordinator Assistant Professor Brenton D G Dickieson.” Clearly, my parents were not as clever in naming children as the primogenitors of our friend, the supremely skillful savant, Sky-blue.
It’s a metadata processing error, I am told. Usually, this isn’t a problem for me. I even got a compliment from an indie music producer about how good I am at metadata management. I think my parents were even considering “Metadata” as my middle name, but they went with “Bis Coordinator” instead.
This issue, however, is beyond me. I’ve talked to OUP (they are working on it), and tried to get my account approved by Amazon (still no word there). An author/publisher friend told me that my problem is I’m talking to a well-paid professional in charge of things when I should be talking to someone who has “Metadata” as a middle name and makes a dollar above minimum wage. Perhaps she is right.
So … what next?
I’m trying to look on the positive side of things. When I find out that my Lewis book is out here in the land of mighty beavers, hand-made toques, and 80% of our population amassed along the US border, I will get to have a second launch! In fact, there’s more to come. On the same hour last Thursday, I booked an on-campus launch with my local bookstore and a library event. I’ll share about that a bit later.
But we need the book on shelves. How can we have a book launch party without any books? It’s pretty essential.
With book sales exceeding 200 million copies, a billion-dollar film industry, and a bookshelf of critical, philosophical, and popular works, C.S. Lewis is at once the beloved author of The Chronicles of Narnia and a leading twentieth-century English-speaking Christian public intellectual. Given the sheer diversity of Lewis’s writing, what holds all this together? What is the beating heart of Lewis’ work?
Among C.S. Lewis scholars, there is near-unanimous agreement with British philosopher Owen Barfield’s claim that, “what Lewis thought about everything was secretly present in what he said about anything.” In The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis, Brenton D. G. Dickieson argues that what Lewis reveals throughout his writings is a cross-shaped, or cruciform, spirituality. As an instinctive and integrative writer of spiritual theology, Lewis believed that “death is at the root of the whole matter”—that God’s self-surrender in Christ through death on a cross and subsequent resurrection is the normative pattern for a healthy spiritual life. This death-and-resurrection pattern unites Lewis’s Christian thought and produces a hopeful and evocative spirituality that is embedded in his poetry and prose.
By reconsidering him as a spiritual theologian, Dickieson uncovers a six-point “Logic of Cruciformity” in Lewis’s apologetics that is embedded in narrative form throughout his other works. The shape of the cross is the shape of Lewis’s spiritual theology. With the “upsidedownedness” of childlike wonder, Lewis reveals what Dickieson calls a “Theology of the Small,” filled with “sacred paradoxes” and offering a hopeful, transformative invitation to spiritual life.
I believe in open access scholarship. Because of this, since 2011 I have made A Pilgrim in Narnia free with nearly 1,000 posts on faith, fiction, and fantasy. Please consider sharing my work so others can enjoy it.
I don’t have a clear idea about how Austen and Dickens handled their social media platforms, but I suspect the videos of them unboxing their author’s copies were quite popular. I decided to join in the tradition and open “the box” on film, with my family there to celebrate.
After they’ve seen the reel (linked below), folks have been good-natured in laughing as I said, “look, it has my name on it … it has words in it … it smells like a book!”
Well, I’ve dreamed of being an “author” since childhood. I even wished upon the North Star from the roof of our heifer barn. I didn’t remember until much later that the Polaris of Narnia is the Spearhead–though I am not certain if it grants wishes. I would have to ask a centaur that kind of thing–and centaurs are so rare nowadays that we wouldn’t want to bother them with frivolous questions.
But the physical book is a thing, isn’t it? I have been a writer for many years, and I have authored hundreds of pieces. My work has been in books–even award-winning books of excellent design. The UPS guy laughed about the weight of the author’s copies box when he handed it to my wife.
A book itself, a tangible object, the book with the words on pages, bound in a cover–a book is a weighty thing. For me, unveiling this first copy is like going from being a writer to being an author.
In the end, the star I navigated by was not Polaris or the Spearhead–not the dream of authorship itself–but the gritty joy of writing, an unwavering commitment to good reading, and a cat’s stubbornness that I would finish this 15-year project.
Thanks to all who have helped and who support me, including the family behind the camera. More about that later. You can find details of the book here. The Kindle/ePub is out now, and the hardcover launch day in the US is Tues, Aug 11th. I’m hoping that’s Canada too, but it isn’t listed yet. See below for more.
And, in the tradition of my favourite 19th-century novelist, my unboxing video on Instagram!
What holds C.S. Lewis’s whole bookshelf together—Narnia, Mere Christianity, the letters, even the poetry most people forget? In The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis, Brenton Dickieson traces a secret thread: a cross-shaped, or cruciform, pattern of dying and rising that runs through everything Lewis wrote. For more than ten years, Dr. Dickieson has researched the “Shape” of C.S. Lewis’s vision of spiritual life. Now he has written a book that reads like a long conversation with a fellow pilgrim who has spent a life inside Lewis’s library.
No doubt these prices are all temporary. The hardcover list price is $35 USD, available Aug 11th.
Talk to your local librarian and see if your library can get The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis on the shelves. That way, you can enjoy it for free, and others may find it as well. There is a serendipity to library finds and indie bookstore encounters that Amazon just can’t kindle.
I always appreciate it when you folks share my work on Social Media and in your own writing. Please continue to do so! Here’s my linktree with all of my accounts: https://linktr.ee/brentondickieson.
For reviews, journal editors can either fill out this form or request a review copy by contacting reviews.global@oup.com directly.
Writers, bloggers, magazine reviewers, literary critics, and journalists can also request a review copy. Fill out this form or request a review copy by contacting reviews.global@oup.com directly.
Teachers and professors can request a review copy or exam copy for use in upcoming classes. Follow this link for more info.
I believe in open access scholarship. Because of this, since 2011 I have made A Pilgrim in Narnia free with nearly 1,000 posts on faith, fiction, and fantasy. Please consider sharing my work so others can enjoy it.
Though I still have not had the pleasure of unpacking a box of author’s copies, I am kind of jazzed to see that my OUP book, The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis, is out today on Kindle and ePub (Kobo, Nook, etc.).
And … as I check to ensure it has truly launched, I see that in the US, it is the #1 New Release in 20th Century Literary Criticism! Cool news, just ahead of T.S. Eliot and Muriel Spark. More “Launch Day Listing Nonsense” below.
Our friends south (and northwest) of the border have the best offer, perhaps. The American Kindle is only $13.19 USD! ($21.99 USD on Barnes & Noble). No doubt these prices are all temporary. The list price is $35 USD.
I hope it is available wherever you live. Since June, The Spiritual Imagination of CSL has been available in eBook by the chapter or as a whole: DOI: https://academic.oup.com/book/62998. Does anyone read books on Google Play? It’s likely there too! Is Apple books still a thing? Maybe, if so, it will be there somehow.
The hardcover should be available through your local bookstore on Aug 11 in Canada and the US (sometime this fall elsewhere).
And … remember what I said last time: Talk to your local librarian and see if your library can get The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis on the shelves. That way, you can enjoy it for free, and others may find it as well. There is a serendipity to library finds and indie bookstore encounters that Amazon just can’t kindle.
Some Launch Day Listing Nonsense
I really don’t know what the Amazon and Goodreads lists mean since the book is 5 minutes old. However, it was fun seeing “Top New Release” on my book–even if it is for the relatively obscure category of 20th-century Lit Crit. You can see the top new releases in this slideshow–once again, I’m ahead of T.S. Eliot, ahem!–and I’m on a couple of other lists of Christian Art and Literature.
Probably the weirdest of the lists that came my way today was the Goodreads “Narnia and Mordor Books” topped by Dorothy L. Sayers and Charles Williams–both more familiar with heaven, hell, and purgatory than either Narnia or Mordor. Still, there I am at #7 behind Joseph Laconte and right on the heels of Alister McGrath. As one does.
Anyway, nonsense but fun. The New York Times haven’t called yet.
How You Can Share the Book with Others
I always appreciate it when you folks share my work on Social Media and in your own writing. Please continue to do so!
And… here are some ways you can support my work and maybe get a copy without paying.
Libraries
We walk down to our local library frequently, and I’m always bugging them at the Robertson Library on the UPEI campus. Here’s the secret: libraries order books. There are so many nonfiction books that librarians rely on feedback from their patrons to determine what the community needs. Request The Spiritual Imagination. You can get a copy to enjoy at no cost and then share it with everyone!
If you have access to a university library, ensure that the resource librarian for English, Literature, Spirituality Studies, and Religious Studies knows about this resource. Many libraries will get access through Oxford University Press online, but this is an inexpensive academic book that will be of endless help to scholars and students. Get them to order a copy for the shelves. And don’t forget your local Bible College, Seminary, and Liberal Arts College.
Reviews
Scholars and grad students know that they can get a comp copy of the upcoming text they are interested in by volunteering to be a reviewer for an Academic Journal. Reach out to your editor. If you are an editor, you can fill out this form or request a review copy by contacting reviews.global@oup.com directly.
Writers, bloggers, magazine reviewers, literary critics, and journalists can also request a review copy. Fill out this form or request a review copy by contacting reviews.global@oup.com directly.
Teachers and professors can request a review copy or exam copy for use in upcoming classes. Follow this link for more info.
I also hope to have 30% off discount codes for scholars, media, and writers, so reach out if you don’t have an editorial contact. Reach out to me if this is you: bdickieson@upei.ca.
What’s It All About?
With book sales exceeding 200 million copies, a billion-dollar film industry, and a bookshelf of critical, philosophical, and popular works, C.S. Lewis is at once the beloved author of The Chronicles of Narnia and a leading twentieth-century English-speaking Christian public intellectual. Given the sheer diversity of Lewis’s writing, what holds all this together? What is the beating heart of Lewis’ work?
Among C.S. Lewis scholars, there is near-unanimous agreement with British philosopher Owen Barfield’s claim that, “what Lewis thought about everything was secretly present in what he said about anything.” In The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis, Brenton D. G. Dickieson argues that what Lewis reveals throughout his writings is a cross-shaped, or cruciform, spirituality. As an instinctive and integrative writer of spiritual theology, Lewis believed that “death is at the root of the whole matter”—that God’s self-surrender in Christ through death on a cross and subsequent resurrection is the normative pattern for a healthy spiritual life. This death-and-resurrection pattern unites Lewis’s Christian thought and produces a hopeful and evocative spirituality that is embedded in his poetry and prose.
By reconsidering him as a spiritual theologian, Dickieson uncovers a six-point “Logic of Cruciformity” in Lewis’s apologetics that is embedded in narrative form throughout his other works. The shape of the cross is the shape of Lewis’s spiritual theology. With the “upsidedownedness” of childlike wonder, Lewis reveals what Dickieson calls a “Theology of the Small,” filled with “sacred paradoxes” and offering a hopeful, transformative invitation to spiritual life.
I believe in open access scholarship. Because of this, since 2011 I have made A Pilgrim in Narnia free with nearly 1,000 posts on faith, fiction, and fantasy. Please consider sharing my work so others can enjoy it.
