Douglas Wilson - Writers to Read: Nine Names That Belong on Your Bookshelf

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Douglas Wilson has a legendary track record of helping reintroduce his audience to the great Christian intellectual tradition. In Writers to Read, we find Wilson at his best: curating the authors who have inspired him and who he believes will galvanize the next generation with theological conviction and imagination. Highly recommended.

Gregory Alan Thornbury, President, The King's College; author, Recovering Classic Evangelicalism

If you combined G. K. Chesterton, H. L. Menken, and P. G. Wodehouse and mixed them with evangelicalism, youd produce a writer like Douglas Wilson. Not only is Wilson one of our finest writers; hes a superb reader and an excellent guide to the writing of luminaries such as Chesterton, Menken, and Wodehouse. Whether introducing you to authors youve never read or reacquainting you with old favorites, Writers to Read will help you become a better reader.

Joe Carter, Senior Editor, Acton Institute; co-author, How to Argue LikeJesus

Wilson opens the twentieth-century vault to reveal a collection of authors who lived during our memory, or our grandparents, and are worthy companions on the shelf with Lewis and Tolkien. Refreshingly broad, Wilson connects you personally with nine authors and critiques them with the penetrating Christian perspective present in all of Wilsons works. This is a must-read for those who, like me, appreciate a few contemporary stepping-stones between Lewis and the great books of antiquity.

David Goodwin, President, Association of Classical Christian Schools

Too many books celebrate great literature without answering the one question we all ask: Why? Why are some authors great? Readers want to know just as much as writers, and Douglas Wilson takes up this question as a humble student of nine skilled prose artists. He has studied their lives and analyzed their works and here offers several of his key discoveries. Writers to Read is a valuable education. Even more, it is an entertaining frolic through literature you do not want to miss.

Tony Reinke, Staff Writer and Researcher, Desiring God Ministries; author, Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books

Doug Wilson is regarded by both friends and foes as a master wordsmith. In Writers to Read, he introduces us to those who taught him (and still teach him) his craft. This book is like a side door into a little diner down a back alley where the nouns pop, the verbs sizzle, and the fry cooks are known only by their initials. If you want an inside look at the art of word weaving, this book is for you.

Joe Rigney, Assistant Professor of Theology and Christian Worldview, Bethlehem College and Seminary; author, The Things of Earth and Live Like a Narnian

WRITERS
TO
READ

Nine Names That Belong
on Your Bookshelf

DOUGLAS WILSON

Writers to Read: Nine Names That Belong on Your Bookshelf

Copyright 2015 by Douglas Wilson

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Jeff Miller, Faceout Studio

Cover image: Shutterstock

First printing 2015

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-4583-2
ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-4586-3
PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-4584-9
Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-4585-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilson, Douglas.

Writers to read : nine names that belong on your bookshelf / Douglas Wilson.

1 online resource

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN 978-1-4335-4584-9 (pdf) ISBN 978-1-4335-4585-6 (mobi) ISBN 978-1-4335-4586-3 (epub) ISBN 978-1-4335-4583-2 (tp)

1. LiteraturePhilosophy. 2. Best books. 3. Books and reading. I. Title.

PN49 2015

801dc23 2015009005

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

For Shadrach, and the lifetime
of reading before you.

Samuel Johnson once said that no one but a blockhead ever wrote but for money. But leaving aside such a base calumny on my possible motives, the main argument will be that if books are among our friends, we ought to apply similar standards to them that we apply to our flesh-and-blood friends. We should want to choose them wisely and well and hope that we will be the better for their companionship.

In this book I would like to introduce you to a few of my close friends, suggesting nine names that belong on your bookshelf. Some have been my friends from childhood, some for many years, and one I met just recently. The best thing about these friendships is that most of them have or had no idea that I exist.

There is one curiosity about them: a number of years ago, I noticed that I tended to gravitate toward friends who, in the form in which we meet them, are largely characterized on book covers by initials instead of their first namesC. S., P. G., G. K, J. R. R., and T. S. Be that as it may, I want to introduce you. We may not get to the point where we call anyone Plum or Jack, but that should be no barrier to this sort of friendship.

If you are already acquainted with these writers, as a number of you undoubtedly are, then perhaps we can remind one another of stories, the way friends often do in the absence of another. Then there was a time...

Often the friends of writers are writers themselves, and so as iron sharpens iron, a writing friend makes a fellow writer sharpen his pencil. But it need not be that way. A writer needs friends who simply benefit from knowing him, which is another way of saying that good writers need good readers. And just as writers need to work at it to write well, so also readers should work at it in order to be able to read well.

My hope in this book of introduction is to help us all become better readers of some fine writers. Quoting Samuel Johnson again, what is written without effort is usually read without pleasurebut it goes the other way as well. What is read without honest effort is written in vain, and these are writers of a caliber that should never receive that kind of an insult.