I’m currently reading one of the best books I’ve ever read. It might, in fact, be the best book I’ve ever read. That is exactly what I want to say about it right now, in fact… but I feel like I should finish it before I name it the best.

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis is really outstanding. I’m only around half way through the book and I can’t get over how good it is. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big C.S. Lewis fan, having read around 15 or so of his books. Mere Christianity is my favorite book of all time, A Grief Observed is my second favorite. Until very recently, I’ve been a much bigger fan of Lewis’ nonfiction than his fiction.

In fact, until recently, the only piece of his fictional work that I’ve enjoyed (and I loved it) was his children's classic, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Out Of The Silent Planet didn’t do much for me, and The Screwtape Letters probably qualifies more as parody than fiction.

Anyway, recently I started feeling guilty enough about having not read the rest of the Chronicles, so I started Prince Caspian and loved it so much that I flew through the remaining books ravenously. I couldn’t get over how good they were.

And I couldn’t get over how good Paul Ford’s Companion to Narnia is. It’s an insightful, fun, informative read, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys Lewis.

Anyway, in the Companion, Ford identifies Till We Have Faces as Lewis’ masterpiece. That was all I needed to know.

Like I said, I’m about half way through …Faces, and I cannot get over how good it is. I can’t remember the last time I read a work of fiction this compelling. Vonnegut once said that a good fiction writer tells us the truth about ourselves by telling us lies about people who don’t exist. With that in mind, I’d say that …Faces is probably the most honest book I’ve ever read. Passages from the book have literally given me cold chills.

If this book is as good in the second half as it has been in the first, I’m confident that I’ll call it the best book I’ve ever read. Even if the second half falls apart, the first half has been so good that I have to recommend the book without hesitation.

Labels: Books