Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

In this book C.S. Lewis takes his readers on a trip to Malacandra, a type of utopia where beings are kinder to each other because there's more than one type of sentinent creature. I really enjoyed the parts of this book that explored philology and the nature of language--particularly the part where Ransom is beginning to learn the hrossa language. I also liked the author's note at the end, which gave the whole thing a meta-fictional slant--Ransom complains to CS Lewis about all the things Lewis omitted from the book, thereby including those very things, at least partially. This book has a very negative view of the way that humans treat each other (the idea is that we live on Thulcandra, the silent planet, which is not connected to the higher heavenly order because of a bent world spirit), but I thought it was beautifully written and overall quite enjoyable.