THE BEST WORDS

Read any good books lately? National Post editors and columnists share their favourite reads of the year.

JUST WHEN I THOUGHT THERE WAS NOTHING MORE THAT I COULD LEARN ABOUT WINSTON CHURCHILL … MY FRIEND ANDREW ROBERTS PRODUCED HIS MIGHTY OPUS ON MR. CHURCHILL, WALKING WITH DESTINY. — CONRAD BLACK

What am I reading that matters? Seroni would know. It is the sort of thing they know.

If that made any sense to you, then you too cherish C.S. Lewis for more than just his Narnia series. And don’t think only new books are worth reading. (I’ve never understood how, in fashion, something is lovely one month and awful the next. Including literary fashion where, as on the catwalk, much appears to high praise that I find obviously ugly.)

So yes, in a year where time for reading was even harder to make than usual, I’ve managed to revisit Lewis’s Perelandra trilogy. The series could be mistaken for typical sci-fi, if such a thing exists. And people sometimes dismiss this genre, and many others, as frivolous or escapist because it’s not horribly gloomy. Though in fact much sci-fi carries a serious message that is deeply dystopian, and well worth pondering before putting transhuman intelligence into headless robots.

Also, as Lewis’s great friend J.R.R. Tolkien said, there’s nothing wrong with escape if you’re a prisoner. And the Perelandra series invites us to consider what it might be like not to be prisoners, specifically of sin. Not very trendy. Just very worthwhile.