How to Read Like C. S. Lewis: Lessons from the Lewis Library
Join us for an engaging event exploring how C. S. Lewis approached reading—with curiosity, imagination, and a deep love of learning. Through two engaging scholar talks, a panel discussion, and an audience Q&A, we’ll discover how Lewis’s unique perspective can help us become more thoughtful and creative readers today. Whether you're a longtime fan of The Chronicles of Narnia or just curious about what makes reading meaningful, this is a chance to see books—and the way we read them—in a whole new light. Learn more about each scholar’s presentation below.
Oct 11, 2025 - Oct 11, 2025
5:15 PM - 7:30 PM EDT
Scholars Initiative Conference Room, Floor 5R
In Person $14.99
Virtual $9.99
Members and Students in Person $9.99
Members and Students Virtual $4.99
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Event Program
5:15 p.m. | Doors Open
5:30 p.m. | Welcome and Introduction to the C. S. Lewis Exhibit by Exhibit Developer Amanda Womack
5:45 p.m. | Dr. Beitler’s Presentation
6:15 p.m. | Dr. Ward’s Presentation
7:00 p.m. | Panel Discussion and Q&A Moderated by Exhibit Developer Amanda Womack
Note: The bookstore will be open throughout the event if you would like to purchase books by C. S. Lewis.
Presentations
Dr. Beitler
C. S. Lewis often wrote detailed notes in the books that he owned, and this talk mines Lewis’s notes for insights on how to read well—humbly, enthusiastically, diligently, and for greater fellowship with others. As we “read over Lewis’s shoulder” together, audience members will learn specific and practical ways to strengthen their own reading lives. Join us to discover what we can learn from Lewis’s personal copies of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, George Herbert’s The Temple, and many other books!
Dr. Ward
C. S. Lewis is best known and most celebrated for his seven Chronicles of Narnia, but these classic tales have not escaped criticism. Some readers have found fault with the books for being assembled out of a jumble of different mythological and literary traditions. Other readers have complained that the stories are too obviously allegorical. Relatively little attention has been paid to Narnia in light of Lewis’s own advice about reading well. However, when we do approach Narnia with his principles in mind—reading in a receptive, not a utilitarian, way and reading with an eye to atmosphere and not just plot—the Chronicles suddenly become even more intriguing and impressive. Lewis recommended, in the words of Alexander Pope, that we should “read each work of wit / With the same spirit that its author writ.” Join us to discover the hidden dimensions of depth that the Narniad reveals when read like that.
Speakers
Dr. Jim Beitler
Jim Beitler is director of the Marion E. Wade Center and professor of English at Wheaton College, where he holds the Marion E. Wade Chair of Christian Thought. His scholarship focuses on the rhetoric of Christian witness and writing as a spiritual activity, looking to C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, Desmond Tutu, and other exemplary communicators as guides for faithful practice. Beitler is the author of three books—Charitable Writing: Cultivating Virtue through Our Words (with Richard Hughes Gibson, 2020), Seasoned Speech: Rhetoric in the Life of the Church (2019), and Remaking Transitional Justice in the United States (2013)—and he teaches undergraduate courses on C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, “Tolkien and Environmental Stewardship,” and “Christianity and Fantasy.” With Aaron Hill, he hosts the Wade Center Podcast.
Dr. Michael Ward
Michael Ward is an associate member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, professor of apologetics at Houston Christian University, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Hillsdale College. Described by Professor N. T. Wright in The Times Literary Supplement as “the foremost living Lewis scholar,” Dr. Ward is the author of the best-selling and award-winning Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (Oxford University Press) and of After Humanity: A Guide to C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man (Word on Fire Academic). He co-edited The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis (Cambridge University Press) and presented the BBC television documentary, The Narnia Code. On the fiftieth anniversary of Lewis’s death, Dr. Ward unveiled a permanent national memorial to him in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, London. He has a keen interest in cinema both as critic and performer, co-authoring Popcorn with the Pope: A Guide to the Vatican Film List (Word on Fire, 2023), playing the role of Vicar in the film The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C. S. Lewis, and handing a pair of X-ray spectacles to Agent 007 in the James Bond movie The World Is Not Enough.