Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Hundred Best Books
C.S. Lewis, letter to his brother (August 7, 1921; "the place" = an inn in Tintagel, Cornwall):
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I have not yet exhausted the horrors of the place: I was glad to see a book case in the lounge. All the books were uniformly bound, and I was surprised to see such unlikely titbits as the Ethics of Aristotle and the works of the Persian epic poet Firdausi. I solved the mystery by finding out that they were a uniform series of Lubbock's HUNDRED BEST BOOKS!!! How I abominate such culture for the many, such tastes ready made, such standardization of the brain. To substitute for the infinite wandering of the true reader thro the byways of the country he discovers, a char-a-banc tour.
