The Last Family

The Last Family

I’m trying an experiment. Starting July 30 I will be publishing a book, The Last Family, on this website, in a strange and unusual way. The book will appear in segments, synchronized in real time with the events of the story.

It’s about an ordinary family of five: Brewer, Amy, and their kids Garrett, Claire, and Trevor. They get home from a hiking trip to find that they are all alone. Everyone else in the world has disappeared. They must figure out how to survive, how to find others, how to endure together in this strange new life.

The book unfolds as a series of diary entries, each member of the family telling their story with their own distinct voice and perspective.

The first entry appears on July 30 at 10:51 PM CT. The next appears soon afterward, and I’ll release it at the date and time of its writing. And so it will go, day by day, hour by hour, new entries appearing at various times, as long as the family keeps writing.

If you don’t want to miss anything, subscribe and I’ll shoot you an email each time a new entry is released.

If you like reading—or if you don’t like reading but like experiencing gripping stories in new ways—please join me for this little experiment.

Reflections on Completing a Chronological Reading of C S Lewis’s Works

I recently completed the quest of reading everything C. S. Lewis ever wrote in chronological order. Now when the moment is fresh, I’d like to clarify, celebrate, and reflect upon that quest. My chief goal in reflection is to make as much good out of the reading as I can as well as to pave the way for the second expedition through his works that I hope to make someday.

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C. S. Lewis’s Letter to Tolkien upon First Reading The Lord of the Rings

J R. R. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings over a long interval that began well before World War II and ended a few years after. Both Tolkien and his adult son Christopher regularly attended meetings of the Inklings, a literary group of which C. S. Lewis was the guiding star, and the two Tolkiens took turns reading The Lord of the Rings as it came together. Lewis had therefore heard most of The Lord of the Rings before receiving the typescript of the finished novel in October 1949. After reading it he wrote this letter to Tolkien.

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Finding C. S. Lewis’s Essays

I am on a mission to acquire a copy of everything C. S. Lewis ever published. The standalone books aren’t too difficult but the essays are a different story. They have been published and republished many times in diverse and overlapping collections. Some collections are out of print. Some are available in the UK but not the US. The essays sometimes change titles as they move from editor to editor. The task of deciphering the minimum number (or minimum total cost) of books necessary to own all of Lewis’s essays very nearly requires the help of an artificial intelligence.

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