Will I love The Screwtape Letters?

I love this book because it trains my eye for the quiet, clever warfare that happens in ordinary thoughts.

Lewis makes temptation feel practical—a thousand tiny nudges toward distraction, resentment, self-importance, and spiritual sleep. It’s also a masterclass in how language can be used as a weapon: the enemy twists words until the soul can’t tell truth from tone.

When I’m writing about men trying to reclaim a new identity, Lewis reminds me that the battle often turns on what you believe about yourself when nobody’s watching.

I have found this book to be a phenomenal exposé on the topic of temptation, presented as a conversation between a senior demon and its junior.

Having many decades of life experience, I have found this book to do such an outstanding job of portraying, through a fictional series of letters, exactly how we can be tempted to do, or not do, or say, or not say, or have attitudes which are destructive vs. beneficial. I walked through this book, chapter by chapter, with my six children when they were in their teens.

I do not think there is another book that explores the topic of temptation, morality and the devil, in such humorous, profound and utterly original way. Clever, and delightfully unique, this book made me reflect on how simple humankind and indeed myself can really be, and just how susceptible we are falling into doing the things that will ultimtely harm us.

“A manual on how to damn someone to hell, written by a demon” is certainly not what you would expect from a renowned Christian author. I love this book because its premise is so insane and sounds deeply demonic.

Instead, as a Christian, what I got was what felt like a peek into my enemy’s playbook and an, at times, scathing insight into how I was failing and playing right into demonic hands. This book made me scared, made me laugh, and, at times, even made me want to cry. 

To empathize with a demon is not something I ever thought I would do, yet while looking at the world through the eyes of a junior one in training I truly felt his pain.

One would think it would be easy to trick a simple human into making mistakes, but with God on their side it would seem not. As hilarious as it is profound, while being deeply enlightened into the ways humans are so vulnerable to their darker nature, I laughed my way through this one, finding it as funny to see the particular faults of others as it… show more.

This Christian writer captures the attention of readers with his unusual approach. His ironic portrayal of human actions is unique. The correspondence between an old devil and his nephew is classic in its cleverness. It teaches the results of falling to temptations and how the devil works to cause an ordinary young man to become his prey.

Despite a very different voice and style, this work mirrors Lamott’s messaging. Perhaps more familiar as the author of the Narnia books, here Jack Lewis offers a devil’s view of how humans get tempted to evil. The book is made up of imaginary letters from a senior devil Screwtape to a junior and incompetent. This book is as witty as it is truthful; particularly about how much suffering arises from self-deception. And we highly recommend listening to the audio version perfectly read by John Cleese!

The Screwtape Letters offers life-changing insight into human thought, misplaced emotions, temptations, and spiritual warfare. This book taught me the importance of living in the present and focusing on whatever is real. It enriched my life more than any other book aside from the Bible. I have enjoyed reading it multiple times and teaching Bible studies on its brilliant messages. Every time I read this masterful novel by C.S. Lewis, I gain wisdom and perspective that positively impacts my mindset. It is the most spiritually freeing and deeply insightful book I have read—a 5-star read from cover to cover.

I’m not even sure what to call The Screwtape Letters. It’s fantasy, but it’s not exactly fiction. It’s philosophy, but there’s no rigorous analysis—in fact, you can’t trust a word out of the narrator’s mouth. But is Screwtape really a narrator? He’s telling a story, sort of, but he’s telling our story, humanity’s story, and therefore the reader’s story, not his own. He’s a demon; that much we know. He’s advising his demon nephew Wormwood on the best ways to ruin a human soul. His project is our mortal peril. Screwtape is one of the greatest characters in twentieth-century… show more.

The Screwtape Letters is a wonderful satire about the spiritual ignorance of human beings. It consists of a series of 31 letters in which Screwtape, a devil, instructs his young nephew, Wormwood, on strategies for tempting humans to separate them from God. I find the book entertaining yet deep. The conclusion is that even though we know the path that we need to follow for our spiritual progress, our fears stop us and drive us apart from God.