This is a great book but don't be sucked into buying it for 150 dollers goto the UK site and get it for 8 bucks. Ships just as fast.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0261103474/ref=sr_aps_books_1_2/026-5367973-8334817

This is one of the best biographical books I've ever read. Carpenter captures the character of some of the most interesting British writers of the WWII/post-WWII era: C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Charles Williams. He manages to tread that careful balance between criticism and adoration. He accomplishes this, I think, out of true sympathy for each of the writers involved. He helped me understand the nature and complexity of the different relationships surrounding C.S. Lewis without resorting to vulgar fault-finding or "taking sides". At one point, Mr. Carpenter recreates an Inkling meeting. The intellectual vigor and personalities of the participants rises off the page and helps to explain why the Inklings generated (and still generate) such interest.

Several recent events have renewed an international interest in the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein: the 50th anniversary of the publication of "The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe" (1950), and the screenplay release of J.R.R. Tolkein's classic "The Fellowship of the Ring" on movie screens around the world in 2001.

Both of these world famous novels were first introduced "publically" at the regular gathering of a few British writers and friends, who informally called their literary club "the Inklings". Even the name "inkling" was a playful self-parody, referring both to the fact that they displayed their imaginations in ink and they often only had an "inkling" of what the other was really talking about.

Carpenter, also the authorized biographer of J.R.R. Tolkein, helps readers enter into the private lives and late-night meetings of these writers. You can smell the cigarette smoke, hear the whistling of the teapot and sense the tension of Oxford intellectuals wrestling with the outbreak of World War II. Thanks to Carpenter's careful retelling of these gatherings, you sit back in the evening, sip your tea and imagine yourself among these writers as another member of the fellowship.

For books on the fellowship of the family, look into these two titles: "The Family Cloister" and "The Christian Family Toolbox" both by David Robinson (New York: Crossroad, 2000 & 2001).