G. K. Chesterton

I think I was put onto Chesterton by a remark by C. S. Lewis, who, if I remember correctly, liked his 'Everlasting Man'. The name Chesterton stayed in the back of my mind for many years but book stores I frequented didn't carry any of his books.

Then one fine day I found a little book, called 'Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Dumb Ox' on the shelves of a private library and borrowed it, not because it was written by Chesterton, but because I was interested in Saint Thomas. Well, that was the beginning, but it wasn't until the Project Gutenberg came my way and I found Orthodoxy, downloaded it and printed it out that I was starting to get really excited about Chesterton. These two books had only shown me one side of Chesterton, although he does wax interestingly on fairies in 'Orthodoxy'.

1998 I was in England for a few weeks visiting my parents and low and behold, 'The Club of Queer Trades' and 'The Man who Was Thursday: A Nightmare' for 99 pence each, not even second hand.

Now I got a different side of Chesterton, surreal, interesting, funny, paradoxical. Well since then more have followed but the man has written so much and so wide that it's hard to get your hands on everything. Chesterton has been criticised for his views on women, his anti-semitism and his (at least at one time held) fascist leanings. I read his books without knowing any of this and having read these things about him later on, they didn't really take away from the pleasure of the books themselves. Off course if you read some of the books I list below and don't agree with him (or me) then that's fine as well, we don't read to agree, we read to learn, think and then dialogue!

Highly recommended

Interesting