As I Was Saying: A Chesterton Reader

by G.K. Chesterton

Book Overview

George Bernard Shaw called him a colossal genius. Pope Pius XI called him a devoted son of the Holy Church and a gifted defender of the faith. A dominant figure in English letters during the first... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080283597X
• ISBN13: 9780802835970
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
• Length: 314 Pages
• Weight: 1.17 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Library of His Own

I discovered Chesterton about fifteen years ago and I have been continuing to discover him ever since. One can never get enough of this great man. Claimed by both liberals and conservatives, he defies modern categories just as he defies modern thought. Along with C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, G. K. C. is a pillar of wonder and joy in an age of sarcasm and despair. A devout Christian, his generous thought is characterised by humility, humor and a sharp brilliance that both awakens and renews the mind. This volume is a wonderful summary of Chesterton's vast library of work. I challenge anyone with a real interest in truth to read a selection from this book and not want to read more. One of the great things about Chesterton is that he wrote about everything and wrote well. His thinking is original and fresh, but also ancient and deep as the deepest streams of philosophy. If you can read just one book by Chesterton (yes, I said it) read this one. This is the cheepest way to buy a Chesterton library. You will never be the same. Enjoy!

Two Kinds of People

There are two kinds of people, runs the old joke: those who divide everyone into two kinds of people, and those who don't. Belonging firmly to the first group, as regards the subject at hand, I hold that there are two kinds of people: those who have never read Chesterton, and those who want everyone else to. The problem for the first group is where to start. The problem for the second group is how to get them started. This book, I humbly suggest, meets both needs. As usual, Regent has gone all out to produce a beautiful edition of a classic book, earning them high points on my list of best publishers. This one was originally a hardback from Eerdmans, published in 1985. There have been other Chesterton readers, so how does this one, edited by Robert Knille, the late avid fan and founder of the first eastern chapter of the Chesterton Society, hold up? Quite well on a few counts. The problem for those in the second group compiling bits of Chestertonia for novices in the first group is to know how to group them. GKC wrote across the board; nearly everything piqued his interest, and nearly all he wrote displayed his sparkling wit, whimsy, and insight. Nearly all of it also contained some common sense idea at the heart, and nearly everyone from the first group who reads so much as a sentence, or even hears it quoted, at once dives headlong into the second group. Chesterton collections really don't need any headings, and those supplied cannot help but be more sedate and boring than the lively bits below them. In that regard, this volume is no exception. There are three sections of poems, but nothing stops the reader from wildly reading them all together. The book starts off with selections from the autobiography, the last thing Chesterton wrote, not the first, published in 1936, a few months before his final farewell. This is one of the few collections to quote at all from the so- called Catholic books, which is to say, those published after 1922, or for that matter, to quote any Catholics. Most of the best- known non- fiction, including Orthodoxy, and the best known novels, including The Man Who Was Thursday and The Ball and the Cross, however, not to say the first Father Brown mysteries, were published long before that time. One very helpful feature of the book is that each selection includes the source from which it is taken, which enables the interested reader to track down the books which catch his or her fancy. The selections range from a paragraph to a few pages, to an entire story, in the case of the Father Brown mysteries. Now that Ignatius has embarked on its publishing project, the Collected Chesterton, the lesser known titles are easier to obtain, and, for that reason, more widely read. But even those with well- thumbed GK books lining the library shelves will find this volume a valuable guide to finding (again) that zinger that lies buried in the stacks somewhere (who knows where), and which converted the reader, a former member of the