The Bookhive List: 'The Chronicles of Narnia' by C.S. Lewis

Everyone has read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which is all well and good, but if you haven't explored the rest of the C.S. Lewis series, you are truly missing out. After having read the entire series several times, I would say that TLTWANTW is far from my favorite, which is why I will now definitively rank them and include just enough of a description to entice you to read them:

1. The Magician's Nephew -- The origin story of Narnia, and something you can completely enjoy if you've only ever read TLTWANTW; it still confuses me why C.S. Lewis published this one so completely out of any logical chronology (it is actually book #6), but it really manages to outshine the others.

2. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader -- Again, it's not totally necessary to read any other books in order to love this one. Two characters from TLTWANTW make an appearance, and everyone basically sails around in a ship having adventures on their way to the end of the world, which turns out to be an actual place. This one is very whimsical and imaginative.

3. The Horse and His Boy -- A pretty random stand-alone story about a kid who lived during the reign of the TLTWANTW characters. There are talking animals and orphans so no further explanation needed.

4. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- The first book published in the series and by far the most popular. Four siblings escape the bombing in London by staying in a country estate, and accidentally discover a portal to another world with talking animals. Pretty much the best thing ever, and worth re-reading as an adult if you've got a free hour or two.

5. The Last Battle -- This final book is a bit weird because all the previous characters come back to battle for Narnia, which they end up destroying but in the end it's not really destroyed? I don't know, but it's a nice fan service book that gets the whole gang back together.

6. The Silver Chair -- This one is very dark, with two kids searching for a missing Prince. I just remember being grossed out a lot when I read it, and there are some nasty giants and also their travel companion is some kind of frog man.

7. Prince Caspian -- This one is by far the lamest because it has the least amount of talking animals. It takes place in the Narnia far-future when talking animals have disappeared, and the original kids come back and mostly argue amongst themselves because they are going through puberty and are not kings/queens anymore. A general bummer.

As a final note, the Disney movie adaptations are really excellent; Ben Barnes is hot and completely redeems Prince Caspian as a character, and they manage to navigate the special effects of talking animals and so forth quite nimbly. It feels just realistic enough to have some narrative stakes, but it remains very aesthetically whimsical and cozy. They only did the first three, and it wouldn't surprise me if they never get around to The Silver Chair because it is so incredibly weird.

The Bookhive List is a weekly recommendation of my all-time favorite, must-read books.

The Bookhive List: 'His Dark Materials' by Philip Pullman

The His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman is often classified as YA, but I didn't read it until adulthood, and I remember thinking that any teenager who read it would certainly grow up to be an incredibly emotionally mature adult. Fantasy is not everyone's cup of tea, myself included, but in the case of His Dark Materials, the fictional universe is very elaborately built up to provide a scaffolding upon which Pullman then dismantles the world in which we live -- and he pulls it off so gracefully. There are two points in the trilogy that stick out to me in particular as being the absolute most I have ever cried while reading a book, and this was more than just a few tears -- I finished the series in sobs; it is also one of my favorite love stories.

The series is often compared to The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, and there are many obvious similarities, including the use of fantasy elements as a kind of stand-in for Christianity. If you found the morality of Narnia to be too simplistic and prefer your religious allegories with heaping doses of cynicism and darkness, then His Dark Materials is more the series for you. The Catholic Church is deeply critical of the series, in part because the characters set out to destroy God; the fact that the human soul exists outside the body in the form of a small animal companion does not help. It is very difficult to read the novels and then accept that you will never have a little "daemon" otter or goldfinch following you wherever you go, and I felt incredibly melancholy after finishing the series because I was so sad to leave this world behind.

The Bookhive List is a weekly recommendation of my all-time favorite, must-read books.

Books to Lean In to the Cold

Some people want to escape the cold this time of year, but I'm one to revel in the changing seasons. In Michigan, you don't have much of a choice anyway. For me, winter is all about lazy weekends on the couch, lots of slowly cooked soups and roasts, and flipping through seed catalogs, dreaming of spring.  The following titles are my suggestions for those who want to enjoy winter while it's here:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis -- It's always winter but never Christmas and kids run around in huge fur coats. If you haven't read this since you were a pre-teen, do yourself a favor and pick it up because it's still a great book.

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman -- This series warrants a much longer post and eventually it'll get one, but in the meantime, all you need to know is that there are zeppelins and human souls exist outside the body as cute animals and it mostly takes place in the Arctic. It is also the series to read if you became an Atheist and hate C.S. Lewis now.

Anything by Jack London -- I hated these books when I was a kid, but they get the job done; there are adventures in the snow with huskies, and people falling through ice and death by hypothermia, etc etc.

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton - Never has sledding seemed so melancholy. Avoid if you're suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt -- One of the very first books i wrote about for Bookhive, and an excellent read if you like sexy collegiate bacchanalia and long, drawn-out descriptions of Vermont apartments without heat.

The Mysteries of New Venice series by Jean-Christophe Valtat -- A decidedly literary adventure series of the steampunk persuasion that takes place in the Arctic, natch. These books are also great for winter because they're addictive, thrilling reads.