You have to talk to the devil in order to really, truly know God. In order to be virtuous, you need to understand vice.

You cannot have good without bad. Light needs darkness. This is one of the main messages at the heart of

C.S. Lewis's, the screw tape letters. Now, the screw tape letters written by C.S. Lewis, yes, the same C.S. Lewis who wrote

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

The Screw tape letters was first published in 1942, dedicated to Lewis's good friend, J.R.R. Tolkien,

the guy who wrote Lord of the Rings.

And is a Christian satirical epistolary novel comprised of 31 letters.

These letters are from an imagined fictional devil called screw tape, writing to a younger apprentice devil, his nephew, Wormwood.

And basically what he's writing about, he's writing these series of letters

to teach this younger devil how to take possession of his human's soul. Each devil is assigned

a human, the patient, and they speak of God as the enemy. And these letters are all about

this older devil, given advice to a younger devil, about how to corrupt a human soul.

And therein lies the lessons throughout this book.

By reading about what a devil advises you to do, you kind of learn how to live in a way that is virtuous and aligned with God.

Now, don't be put off by this idea of God.

I am not a Christian in any sense of, any

traditional sense of the word. Now, this might put a lot of people off because it's a theological

novel with heavy Christian tones. I mean, it is, it's basically preaching. But this is a very

exciting slim novel, a slim novel that you can finish in a day. It's very beautifully

written. It's rendered with some very colourful characters, and it is just one of those

books that is better than most of the books that you'll find on the self-help shelf. It's a shame

that a lot of people will be put off because of the Christian over, is it, should I say overtones? Because it is just a Christian book, so to be honest, it's not even like it's hidden. But this is a fantastic book, and there's so much you can learn and you can directly apply to your own life. It's one of those books. It's like Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. If you got a lot out of meditations or some of the stoic writings of Seneca and things like that,

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