Monthly Archives: December 2014

2014: A Year of Reading

I seldom do well at New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve failed at almost every well-intentioned goal.  One that I have managed to keep is my reading resolution. As I’ve begun working on a PhD in Theology and Literature (focussing on C.S. … Continue reading

Posted in News & Links, Original Research | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments

The Gift of the Magi

There are few of them left: the kind of used bookstore with old, over-stuffed wooden shelves, literate staff, and stacks of volumes crowding the aisles. The kind of used bookstore that plays the Canadian Broadcasting Company in the background. I … Continue reading

Posted in Memorable Quotes | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Pushing past the Coats and Back into the Wardrobe (Guest Blog)

by Sarah Waters Narnia, or at least the idea of a wonderland which you can access with a couple of quick steps into your wardrobe, has become a well-known phenomenon since the publication of those Chronicles many years ago now. … Continue reading

Posted in Guest Blogs, Reflections | Tagged , , , , , , | 21 Comments

The Hobbit as a Living Text: The Battle of 5 Blogs

This post is part of the Battle of the Five Blogs, or six blogs to be precise. It is a throw-down of various Tolkien bloggers who are thinking about the release of the final installment of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy,  … Continue reading

Posted in Reflections | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 101 Comments

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Blogs

Or thereabouts. A very serious sounding business, isn’t it? Well, we have fewer enemies and more allies than Peter Jackson’s crowd. We also have fewer extras and less CGI–though some of us may CGI a little for dates on the … Continue reading

Posted in Reflections, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments

A Level of Hell that Dante Forgot: A Note from Discworld

Terry Pratchett is about as weird and wonderful an author as I could ever want. A master world-builder, he trades in irony, parody, and satire the way the TV show Glee trades in stereotypes. And yet, despite the constant self-degradation … Continue reading

Posted in Fictional Worlds, Memorable Quotes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 29 Comments

I’m a Blog-hobbit!

“Maybe there are more blog-hobbits around there parts! If we find enough, we could make a pie!” Tom said…. Well, that’s not exactly what Bilbo Baggins said when asked by the trolls what he was. But I thought, given the … Continue reading

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Is it Time for Radagast the Brown? (and a note on Middle Earth Wizards)

If you are anything like me, a lover of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth who has only slowly explored all the secrets behind The Lord of the Rings, you may have been surprised by Radagast the Brown. I knew he existed, … Continue reading

Posted in Fictional Worlds, Memorable Quotes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

“I’d Rather be Damned than Go along With You!” The Big Man in The Great Divorce

Readers here will know that I’ve blogged about bullying before. C.S. Lewis himself struggled with the culture of bullying at the schools he went to. In this intriguing chapter of The Great Divorce, published 70 years ago today, Lewis explores … Continue reading

Posted in Memorable Quotes, Reflections | Tagged , , , , , , | 22 Comments

The Novelist as Listener, by Eugene Peterson

Over the past few years I have had the luxury of being a TA and Instructor in Regent College’s phenomenal distance education program. Long past the days of correspondence tapes in the mail, distance ed is now highly relational and … Continue reading

Posted in Creative Writing, Memorable Quotes, On Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments