If you want omnibus coverage of both these major authors/thinkers lives, this isn’t it. Duriez compiled these thoughts from smatterings of lectures he’s delivered to audiences in the UK and US and at times, the book seems more like a collection of notes than a seamless dual biography. On the other hand, it’s a good overview, if somewhat critical of Lewis. The beginnings of chapters that offer little vignettes of significant moments in their lives or their friendship are especially compelling. But overall, this isn’t the best biography of either of the men and leaves out much of the richness that could be included given Duriez’s years of study into their careers.

A highly enlightening co-biography of the two giants. Duriez, predictably, was at his best when melding the two lives; the best insights came in the relations of the two to each other, in the quirks and modulations of their friendship. Their intimacy, roughened by differences, is bittersweet. The two pillars of Christian story influenced each other intensely, even as they differed widely as to the place of the author in Christian thought. Tolkien resented Lewis’ “amateur dabbling” in theology. Lewis regarded Tolkien as somewhat dilatory and eccentric, though clever. Intriguingly, their friendship had an academic, sitting-room air to it, washed with tobacco, beer and tea, seldom exposed to the rigors of non-collegiate life; Edith, Tolkien’s wife, and Lewis were mutually uncomfortable until Lewis’ late marriage. Memorable is a conversation on page 100, where Lewis and Tolkien discuss the kind of books “we like”: “‘You know, Tollers,’ Lewis says decisively, pipe in hand. ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to write them ourselves.’” Could there be a lesson there?