Lord Foulgrin's Letters

Lord Foulgrin's Letters by Randy Alcorn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Very good!

It's hard for an author to write in the footprints of C.S. Lewis, but Randy Alcorn has done an excellent job of writing a modern version of The Screwtape Letters.  The story is of a Senior Demon, Lord Foulgrin, who has, as part of his duties, the supervision of a lower level tempter called Squaltaint along with six other tempters.  Squaltaint's subject is Jordan Fletcher, a forty something businessman with a wife, and a teenage daughter and son.  Jordan is restless and bored with his life.  He has all he could desire, an attractive wife, a vacation home larger than any of his friends and plans to buy a boat.  He is the top salesman at work and he has been flirting with an affair with his secretary.  In spite of all that he has, he senses that something is missing.

Squaltaint has been assigned to tempt Jordan into a life that will ultimately lead to his forfeiting his soul to the devil, which seems to be an easy assignment.  There is a good possibility that Jordan and his whole family are sliding effortlessly into hell and never being aware of the spiritual battle for their lives.

It's hard to think about a book like this being entertaining, but the wiles of the devil are amusing when written in the form of letters from one tempter to another.   Readers will find parallels in their own lives however and will wonder why they never thought of some things as temptations.  How many times have we wanted something so desperately that we couldn't get it out of our mind and then, when the money is spent and the deed is done, find that we are not happy and now our lives are filled with guilt and remorse.  The letters between Squaltaint and Lord Foulgrin give a behind the scene look at what is really going on.

The book is based on the passages in the Bible that describe the devil and the constraints he operates under.  The letter format adds insight into how the temptation takes place and the protection that is available to all humans if they will simply listen.  Besides being full of situations which almost everyone deals with, the letters give a tongue and cheek description of the hassles that devils have to put up with and their humorous day to day complaints.

Alcorn, Randy. Lord Foulgrin's Letters (p. 15). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Alcorn, Randy. Lord Foulgrin's Letters (p. 15). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. .  The human, who is the subject of the


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2017

I left off doing reviews these last 2 years and I miss doing them.  It takes a lot of extra time, but so often, I see the title of a book and I can't remember anything about it, or, I am looking for a book and can't remember the title.  I have read 119 books already this year and I have written a few reviews.  I'm gong to try to go back and review some others and continue to do reviews for the rest of the year.

This year I have done many Goodreads challenges and I am amazed to see how much I have been missing.  PopSugar has made me look outside my comfort zone (Steampunk for example) and I have read a lot of good books that I otherwise would not have read.  I have also cleared 30 books from my "Currently Reading" shelf, many of which have been there for a couple of years.  There are still 65 books on the list, but those are frequently ebooks or audio books from the library that I check out to see if I really want to read them.  If the answer is "yes" I put them in the order I want to read them.

I am also doing a "Dewey Decimal" challenge where I have to read 1 book from each ten categories.  That has made me look out of my comfort zone also.  I have 7 of them done, but I am faltering on a book from the 400s and 500s.  I also haven't chosen one from the 900s, but I plan to read one of the many books I have on Hitler.  I just have to decide whether I want to read one that has 800+ pages (also a PopSugar prompt) or finish Les Miserables for the PopSugar and pick a shorter Hitler book.  I have already read over 500 pages in Les Mis, but I slogged down in the Napolionic War...just like Napolean did!

The main challenge is to read a certain number of books during the year.  I chose to read 150, but I am ahead by 37 books, so I should be reading both a Hitler book and Les Mis. but I also am doing a "Serial Challenge" for what has turned out to be a pretty huge number of books.  In this challenge, the point is to fill in the book in a series that you haven't read and there are some that new books are coming out in and I am behind.  I have to finish 11 series and start and finish 4 new ones.  The 11 I have already started ended up having more books missing than I thought, so it amounted to over 50 books.

While this all seems an enormous number of books, many books can fit more than one category.  All books go into the 100+ category and then I try to put them in at least one more category.  For example, A book from the  Hamish Macbeth series also fits the "a book by an author who uses a pseudonym: Death of a Ghost by M.C. Beaton.  Another book in that series, Death of a Dreamer, fits the "book with an eccentric character" to fit another PopSugar prompt.

All of this has been a lot of fun and in searching for help with some of the PopSugar prompts, I have met a lot of nice people who share my love of reading.