Note: the edition I actually read was The Screwtape Letters: includes Screwtape Proposes a Toast, which is the same book, albeit with an extra chapter added at the end so therefore it apparently gets a different record on Goodreads. Which seems marginal to me, but there you go. I've just copied my review of the longer edition into this one, basically for my own records.

Starting on the Book Riot 2019 Read Harder challenge with this - I'm using it to tick off the epistolary novel/collection of letters task. And it's a fun book! Dear old Uncle Screwtape scribbling away in hell, trying to lecture his nephew into corrupting competence, and ultimately failing because said nephew, amongst other things, is just not too bright. The whole thing's very tongue-in-cheek, an argument for Christianity that Lewis cloaks in mirrors and opposites. And it's all very clever, but I can't help but think while reading that for all his observations about humans existing in time, the most interesting and effective parts of the book are those where he uses very simple examples. For instance the elderly lady, determined to give everyone trouble by being subversively gluttonous regarding her dietary choices - weak tea and toast that has to be just so and that no-one can ever get right, no matter how much of their attention she focuses on her "simple" needs. It's a really cutting piece of satire, easily recognisable and blazingly effective as illustration, and I only wish Lewis (and Screwtape) had spent less letter time wallowing in the abstract and more on writing stuff like this.