Good news!  John Martin’s book, The Cat on the Catamaran: A Christmas Tale, is now shipping!  Order your copy today!

Zossima is proud to announce that four forthcoming books are currently available for pre-order:

C.S. Lewis & Philosophy as a Way of Life, by Adam Barkman

Harry Potter & Imagination: The Way Between Two Worlds, by Travis Prinzi

Repotting Harry Potter: A Professor’s Book-by-Book Guide for the Serious Re-Reader, by James W. Thomas

The Cat on the Catamaran, by John Martin (Update: Now Shipping!)

Zossima Press is glad to offer three exciting deals on excellent C.S. Lewis scholarship.  Inventory is limited. When they’re gone they’re gone. Order for yourself or for a gift (or both!)

Offer #1: CSL: The Bulletin of the New York C.S. Lewis Society. Published since 1969, this bi-monthly bulletin contains essays and reviews on C.S. Lewis, his works, ideas, and connections to other writers.  16 pages for $10 USA subscribing membership. Special Offer (while supplies last) for every USA subscription you may get a FREE hardcover copy of James Como’s Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C.S. Lewis. You pay only the price of subscription ($10) plus $4.75 shipping/handling (Total - $14.75). For more information and samples of the bulletin go to their website: www.nycslsociety.com.  Each issue is sixteen  8.5 x 11” pages.  Click here to purchase! (USA orders only)  

Offer #2: Why I Believe in Narnia: 33 Reviews and Essays on the Life and Works of C.S. Lewis by James Como PLUS get a FREE hardcover copy of Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C.S. Lewis for $15.25, with just $4.75 shipping/handling (Total = $20). Thomas Howard calls James Como “an enormously astute critic and scholar of immense integrity.” America Magazine writes: ”Many have rummaged around the Lewis legacy, but few interpreters are as trustworthy as Como.”  Library Journal wrote: “For the serious reader . . . good insights into Lewis the man.”  Click here to purchase!

Offer #3: C.S. Lewis: View from The Wake Forest (16 essays edited by Michael Travers) for just $15.25 PLUS get a bonus hardcover book C.S. Lewis: Memories and Reflections by John Lawlor for just $4.75 shipping for both books (Total = $20). Lawlor was a personal friend of not only C.S. Lewis, but all the other Inklings. The list price of Lawlor’s book is $22.95an you can get a brand new shrink-wrapped copy for FREE. Thomas Howard writes of this book, “I do not think I have ever read a book on Lewis which so instantly engaged and delighted me.” Walter Hooper writes: “The range of this book is staggering.” Library Journal writes: ”A welcome addition to Lewis biography.” And the Washington Post reviewer thought, “The chapter on the Chronicles of Narnia is one of the best evaluations of the famous children’s books I have ever read.”  Click here to purchase!

John Granger, author of The Deathly Hallows Lectures, has been continuing on his lecture schedule and getting into a lot of fun conversations.  These four available audio files are cross-posted from John Granger’s blog, Hogwarts Professor.  Enjoy!

1. Hog’s Head PubCast #60: John Granger Interview, The Deathly Hallows Lectures: Travis Prinzi, the Hog’s Head maestro, helped launch sales of my latest book, The Deathly Hallows Lectures: The Hogwarts Professor Explains Harry’s Latest Adventure by podcasting a conversation about the eye symbolism of Deathly Hallows.

2. “Are Joanne Rowling’s Harry Potter Novels Great Books?” was the question in a Biola University podcast featuring John Mark Reynolds, Paul Spears, and myself, in which the Torrey Honors Institute professors express their doubts and the Hogwarts Professor tries to keep up.

3. The same crowd try to decide “What Constitutes Harry Potter Canon?” John Mark Reynolds champions “text alone,” I argue for “text first,” and the push-back is genial and furious.

4. Just before I spoke at Saybrook College, Yale, Jerry Bowyer, my favorite talk-radio host, called me to catch up and help me promote How Harry Cast His Spell: The Meaning Behind the Mania. This is an mp3 recording of that exchange.

In Zossima’s newest essay collection, C.S. Lewis: Views from Wake Forest, you will find a couple of excellent articles by Lewis scholars Walter Hooper and James Como.  Good news: There are audio files  of their lectures for those two papers, available for free download from Zossima.com!  Check out these excellent presentations by two preeminent Lewis scholars.  They’re linked below, and they are permanently available at the Zossima Store.

Listen to Walter Hooper talk about his work as an Editor of the works of C.S. Lewis!

Listen to James Como talk about Culture and Public Philosophy: The Other C.S. Lewis!

Enjoy these talks?  Then you’ll love Zossima’s essay collection, C.S. Lewis: Views from Wake Forest.  Order your copy today!

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For a great intro to John Granger’s book, The Deathly Hallows Lectures, listen to Hog’s Head PubCast #60, in which Travis Prinzi interviews Mr. Granger.

What are readers of John Granger’s newest book saying?  Here are the first reviews from Amazon.com: Read more

It’s arrived! John Granger’s newest book, The Deathly Hallows Lectures, is available for purchase. For a limited time, when ordering from Zossima.com, you’ll get an autographed copy! Place your order now!

The fastest-selling book in publication history, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was a critical success and is loved by fans around the world. In The Deathly Hallows Lectures, John Granger reveals the Potter finale’s brilliant details, themes and meanings. Even the most ardent of Harry Potter fans will be surprised by and delighted with the Hogwarts Professor’s explanations of the three dimensions of meaning in Deathly Hallows to include why Ms. Rowling chose to make Lily’s eyes green, why Harry buried Moody’s eye where and when he did, and why Ollivander prefers the three wand cores he does. Ms. Rowling has said that alchemy sets the “parameters of magic” in the series; after reading the chapter-length explanation of Deathly Hallows as the final stage of the alchemical Great Work in The Deathly Hallows Lectures, the serious reader will understand how important literary alchemy is in understanding Rowling’s artistry and accomplishment. The other seven chapters explore, among other things, the five writing tricks Ms. Rowling uses to work her story magic, the deciphering of the “Triangular Eye” symbol for the three Hallows, Harry’s “struggle to believe” in Albus Dumbledore, why Ms. Rowling revealed that she “always thought” of the Headmaster as gay, and the more than 25 echoes of her first book, Philosopher’s Stone, in Deathly Hallows. Did you wonder why Fred died in the end? Why Harry went underground seven times in Deathly Hallows? Granger explains how Ms. Rowling’s story formula required these twists - as well as two trips to King’s Cross and two meetings with Albus Dumbledore at story’s end. John Granger, the Hogwarts Professor, has spoken about the meaning and magic of Harry Potter at major universities from coast to coast and as a Keynote Speaker at fan conventions in the United States and Canada. Enjoy these lectures to learn the ins and outs and fascinating depths of Deathly Hallows - information unavailable anywhere else!

Hot off the press! Two books in one: George MacDonald’s The Diary of an Old Soul and Betty Aberlin’s The White Page Poems. In 1880, George MacDonald, the Scottish poet, novelist and preacher, in the wake of the deaths of two of his children, published A Book of Strife in the Form of the Diary of an Old Soul. This book, which unites grief and hope in hard-won faith, contains a poem for every day of the year. Across from each page of verses he provided a clean “white page.” In the first edition of what became a classic collection of poetry, MacDonald invited the reader to respond to the “seed” of his words with their own reflections. He wrote: “Let your white page be ground, my print be seed, Growing to golden ears, that faith and hope may feed.”

Betty Aberlin responded to MacDonald’s invitation with daily poems of her own. Here are a few of the accolades for The White Page Poems:

“In this labor of love, Betty Aberlin’s close readings of George MacDonald’s verses, and her thoughtful responses to them speak clearly of her poetic gifts and spiritual intelligence.” Luci Shaw, poet.

“An awesome collection & collaboration.” Daniel Berrigan, SJ, poet-in-residence, Fordham University

“A fascinating new book . . . fresh and incisive.”  Don King, author of C.S. Lewis, Poet.

Read The Diary of an Old Soul and The White Page Poems: sample here.