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Showing posts from December 21, 2008

Best-loved books of 2008, #21: Favorite classic revisited

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Shop Indie Bookstores The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (bonus: great Christmas vacation reading!) Okay, I'm totally cheating on this one: not only was it not published this year, but it wasn't even on my original list of favorites. I realized I miscounted and needed one more to push it up to a full Advent calendar 24. Reading Laura Miller's appreciation of Lewis , and especially his association with Christmas, convinced me that it's not totally out of bounds to declare my love for this many-times-read series, especially at this particular season. On a visit to my family in California this summer, I joined them at a Ventura movie theater for a viewing of Prince Caspian , since all of us grew up having the Chronicles read to us until we could read them ourselves. The movie was pretty terrible, at least for us purists -- the directors added a nasty power struggle and an unbelievable romance that are entirely absent from Lewis' pre-adolescent adventures -- but