A tribute to Eudora Welty on her 90th birthday From her home in inconspicuous Jackson, Mississippi, Eudora Welty has written some of the funniest and most moving stuff of this century, with solid and elegant prose rather than the pyrotechnics of a noisily experimental style. One thing that has always been remarkable about her work is the affection she has for her characters, her deep-grained habit of love for the eccentric outsiders she depicts. Readers have picked up the habit of love for Ms. Welty herself as well, as is thoroughly demonstrated by Hill Street Press’s new volume of tributes, a 90th birthday present to her.

Eudora Welty: Writers’ Reflections upon First Reading Welty brings together a roster of 22 writers, editors, scholars, and friends to describe their first encounters with Ms. Welty’s work. Tributeers range from Richard Bausch to Richard Wilbur, from Alice Munro to Reynolds Price. Several credit their encounters with Welty for the realization that the Southern vernacular could be legitimately literary. Tony Earley writes, incredibly, the voice had the same accent I did. It was the first time I had realized that literature could speak in a language I recognized as my own. Others recall the shock of finding out that a nice lady in a print dress was making work more daring and more honest than their own. Some, like William Maxwell, recall shared experiences, and others describe the pleasure of first hearing Welty read. All are unflagging in their appreciation, overflowing with praise for the first lady of Southern letters.

After these accolades, it’s a sharp pleasure to turn back to Ms. Welty’s works, in crisp new Modern Library editions. Here are the achingly accurate descriptions of grief in The Optimist’s Daughter, the charm and delicacy of Delta Wedding, the hilarity of a story like Why I Live at the P.O., and the perceptiveness and kindness that runs through every sentence she has ever written. Welty has never been fond of the idea of biography, asking that her books be allowed to stand on their own. I thought of this while re-reading the fabulous One Writer’s Beginnings, in which Ms. Welty describes her childhood understanding of books: It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. A fresh reading of her books, wonders all, is a fitting way to celebrate her 90th, and to get to know, once again, the writer who draws such ardent reponse from so many talented admirers.

Anne Stringfield is on the staff of the New Yorker.

You cannot help but wonder if C. S. Lewis might not have been more at home in an earlier age. In his opposition to the relativistic and materialistic philosophy of our modern times, a philosophy that he believed was sapping the magic and the mystery out of literature and life, Lewis knew that he was out of step with modernity. In fact, he once referred to himself as a cultural dinosaur. But 35 years after his death, the influence of this unassuming British scholar shows no sign of abating. His numerous books continue to sell briskly, and he has been the subject of a Broadway play and two feature films, as well as the focus of countless biographies, literary studies, and religious reflections. One could make the argument that he is also the most oft-quoted religious writer of the 20th century, his work appealing across denominational and confessional lines. Lewis is best known as a writer of stylish and memorable books exploring Christian faith and practice (Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters) and the creator of the Chronicles of Narnia (which has achieved classic status in children’s literature). Less well-known are his fiction for adults (the Space Trilogy and the remarkable Till We Have Faces) and his highly readable volumes of literary history and criticism. This year marks the hundredth anniversary of Lewis’s birth and has brought forth the expected explosion of secondary works analyzing and celebrating the mind and imagination of this highly creative thinker. None of these compares in usefulness to the newly published The C. S. Lewis Reader’s Encyclopedia. The editors of this hefty volume have sought to summarize the scope of Lewis’s achievement by gathering essays from a wide range of Lewis experts. These short essays, set up in an encyclopedic format, provide an overview of the life, work, and ideas of Lewis, focusing on his literary output: all the books, poems, essays, book reviews, prefaces to the works of others, and even never-before-discussed letters to the editor. In addition, the volume offers a concise, yet penetrating biography of Lewis’s life and entries on his family and friends, as well as his literary and theological forebears. The writing is crisp and interesting, offering insights of value to the serious student of Lewis’s writing, while at the same time being easily accessible to the reader just discovering his work. Although a few essays veer perilously close to hagiography, most show an admirable critical balance, and the comprehensive nature of the whole project is very satisfying. Reading these valuable summaries of Lewis’s work, one is reminded again of his strengths: a vivid imagination, a sparkling wit, clear common-sense thinking, a gift for memorable analogies, and an unshakable faith in the reasonableness of the Christian view of existence. That he could synthesize these in ways that appealed to children as well as academics is probably what has kept this dinosaur from becoming extinct. The manner in which he combines intelligence with a soaring imagination still serves as a challenge to contemporary writers to break free from the usual modes of religious writing and forge creative new ways of communicating timeless ideas.

Terry Glaspey is the author of five books, including Not a Tame Lion: The Spiritual Legacy of C. S. Lewis. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Review by Eliza R. L. McGraw Unsurprisingly, Philip Hamburger’s collection of essays from his years at the New Yorker is dedicated to Harold Ross, the curmudgeonly and astute editor who presided over the tenures of such New Yorker writers as James Thurber, E.B. White, and, of course, Hamburger.

Hamburger is in many ways a true Ross production, the kind of writer that made the New Yorker legendary. Friends Talking in the Night delightfully collects his best and most varied moments, from profiles to movie reviews.

Ever the New Yorker himself, Hamburger comments on the mayors of Gotham from the vantage point of his apartment across the street from Gracie Mansion in his 1953 essay, Some People Watch Birds. He writes that Fiorello LaGuardia was the busiest of our recent mayors and he spent, for a mayor, an inordinate amount of time at City Hall. Thanks to this perversity, I didn’t see as much of him as I would have liked. Hamburger’s comments on world affairs are equally as detailed as those on Gracie Mansion, but naturally graver. In Milan during Northern Italy’s 1945 liberation from Fascism, Hamburger stood in the Piazza Loreto as war criminals were executed: There were no roars of bloodcurdling yells; there was only silence and then, suddenly, a sigh a deep, moaning sound, seemingly expressive of release from something dark and fetid. Such serious events evoke Hamburger’s more somber tone, providing balance in the collection between his lighter work and his comments on global events.

Any student or lover of writing who leafs through Friends Talking in the Night may have a similar response to the one Hamburger had while watching Jimmy Stewart’s 1955 performance in High Noon: The mules know that no ordinary actor has hold of the reins. They know when a star has hold of the reins, and their ears go up. I’ve seen it happen a hundred times.

Eliza McGraw is a graduate student in English in Nashville, Tennessee.

Review by George Cowmeadow Bauman In 1997’s Booknotes, Brian Lamb collected a number of his interviews with writers who had appeared on his TV program of the same name. Now the man responsible for the oxymoronically named Book TV is at it again compiling irresistible reading for fans of C-SPAN’s Booknotes program, and for anyone interested in good writing and interesting lives.

Booknotes: Life Stories is being published to celebrate the program’s tenth anniversary, and it is Lamb at his finest. He’s collected 75 interviews with biographers who responded to Lamb’s questions about their subjects and the process of turning inspiration into print. Included are Susan Butler on Amelia Earhart, Taylor Branch on Martin Luther King, Jr., and Norman Mailer on Lee Harvey Oswald. Walter Cronkite, Frank McCourt, and Katharine Graham discuss their own lives, public and private. Lamb describes his interviewing style in the book’s Introduction: I’m not in that chair on behalf of intellectuals; my job is to ask questions on behalf of the average George and Jane, Cathy and Jim. In the interest of making the collection more readable, Lamb’s questions have been deleted. The biographers’ comments about their subjects are conversational.

An appendix lists all of the Booknotes interviews over the ten-year run of the program. It’s an impressive collection of the best nonfiction writers during that period.

Readers who enjoy American history will find a wealth of material here. Historical misunderstandings are corrected. For example, Paul Revere never said, The British are coming! The colonists still thought they were British. Instead, he shouted, The regulars are out! Whether Booknotes: Life Stories is read for enjoyment or is used as a reference, it will cause the reader to give thanks for the national literary treasure known as Brian Lamb.

George Cowmeadow Bauman is the co-owner of Acorn Bookshop in Columbus, Ohio.