The Four Loves - C.S. Lewis

I had a little trouble rating this book. On one hand, I don't think I should give every Lewis book 5 stars. This book is excellent but not my favorite of his. On the other hand, it is astounding that anyone can so thoroughly cover the topic of Love in 140 pages! What to do?

As I think about this book I find myself of 2 minds. Four Loves? How could there be so many? and yet it hardly seems like enough. Lewis is a master of classification and opens your eyes to that which you would not have thought of as love (but why you aren't sure) and anchors the more familiar loves so they don't start absorbing that which is not their own.

The format of the book is also very important. He begins by breaking all love down into Need-Love and Gift-Love and how both are necessary to our creatureliness. He ends with Charity which is its own form of love and yet the "gardener in the garden of all loves." It is the love that makes all other loves good and keeps them from becoming gods in themselves.

How to rate this book? Hmmm....I think I just answered that.