Personal Development through Thinking

Here you will find reviews of books (non-fiction) relating to the theme of this site,  personal growth.

Grief
The first book I want to recommend on this blog is one on grief. Over the years I have read a great many academic books concerning Philosophy and Counselling. The topics have been extremely broad from questions on desire, meaning, and equality to authenticity, death, and purpose (meaning and purpose not necessarilly describing the same thing). In the books I have read on grief none have struck me so profoundly, and so deeply, as C. S. Lewis’ book ‘A Grief Observed.’

I know little of the man himself other than he held three first-class degrees from Oxford and he was also a defender of the Christian Faith. I am also aware he wrote ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.’

‘A Grief Observed’ was written due to the death of his wife Joy Davidman Gresham Lewis. It is a book to which I felt immediately connected. It’s small in size and can be quickly read but that in no way detracts form its content. He begins the first chapter ‘No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.’ In one short sentence he expressed what I, and many of you have probably felt either now, or at some other time in your life. If not fear, something very much like it.

Grief is unique to each of us. But Lewis describes events and emotions that will feel familiar to anyone who has greived or might now be greiving, and that so many of us find difficulty expressing.

C S Lewis in an intelligent, eloquent writer that may help you explore your own grief. Perhaps by writing your own journal. It’s advisable to read the booklet more than once to capture its essence. I don’t want to overwork my recommendation of this book suffice to say it helped me to realise some of my own inner feelings about the loss of people I loved. It has as much value today as it did when first published in 1961.