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Reading for the Love of God
What if we viewed reading as not just a personal hobby or a pleasurable indulgence but a spiritual practice that deepens our faith?
In Reading for the Love of God, award-winning author Jessica Hooten Wilson does just that—and then shows listeners how to reap the spiritual benefits of reading. She argues that the simple act of reading can help us learn to pray well, love our neighbor, be contemplative, practice humility, and disentangle ourselves from contemporary idols.
Accessible and engaging, this guide outlines several ways Christian thinkers—including Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy L. Sayers—approached the act of reading. It also includes useful special features such as suggested reading lists, guided practices to approaching texts, and tips for meditating on specific texts or Bible passages. By learning to read for the love of God, listeners will discover not only a renewed love of reading but also a new, vital spiritual practice to deepen their walk with God.
In Reading for the Love of God, award-winning author Jessica Hooten Wilson does just that—and then shows listeners how to reap the spiritual benefits of reading. She argues that the simple act of reading can help us learn to pray well, love our neighbor, be contemplative, practice humility, and disentangle ourselves from contemporary idols.
Accessible and engaging, this guide outlines several ways Christian thinkers—including Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy L. Sayers—approached the act of reading. It also includes useful special features such as suggested reading lists, guided practices to approaching texts, and tips for meditating on specific texts or Bible passages. By learning to read for the love of God, listeners will discover not only a renewed love of reading but also a new, vital spiritual practice to deepen their walk with God.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2023
About the author
Jessica Hooten Wilson
14 books148 followersJessica Hooten Wilson (PhD, Baylor University) is the inaugural Visiting Scholar of Liberal Arts at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She previously taught at the University of Dallas. She is the author or editor of eight books, including Reading for the Love of God, The Scandal of Holiness (winner of a Christianity Today 2023 Award of Merit), and Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky (winner of a 2018 Christianity Today Book of the Year Award). Wilson speaks around the world on topics as varied as Russian novelists, Catholic thinkers, and Christian ways of reading.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
March 20, 2023
Reading for the Love of God explores a subject I live every day, which is the intersection of spirituality and the reading life. The chapters are short and punchy, and the purchase of the book is worth it just for the four excurses, “bookmarks,” which consider the reading lives of St Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy L. Sayers.
I found many of her ideas engaging, and the way she handles texts is illuminating and joyous. She makes me want to read more, scribble down titles. After this I will head out to balloon my library’s circulation numbers, which is my solemn destiny. I am always ready for more books on books!
However, there is an issue for me in Hooten Wilson’s writing that I have found elsewhere. (Her previous book, The Scandal of Holiness, sits partially unread on my shelves because I hadn’t read any of the books it discusses. Most were on my list already but that had never before happened to me with a bibliomemoir.) When she includes personal anecdotes, Hooten Wilson almost always shares a story where she is the smart one and her interlocutor fails to live up to her standards. Chapter 3 begins with an especially bitter-tasting example of Hooten Wilson setting up a student to look foolish in front of the whole class, and she writes it with “too much relish.” (49-50) It sounded like a Kurtis Conner bit, what the young folks call “clowning” on someone.
Despite the many self-aggrandizing and others-belittling anecdotes (ya really couldn’t think of one time you learned from a peer, hmm?), I found Reading for the Love of God worth my engagement. Hooten Wilson displays marvelous humility and insight when reading books. When reading her acknowledgements, I wondered, where are those companions in the pages of this book? Toss out the bland, The Office-level cringe humor and throw in those meaty conversations! Hooten Wilson is one of the few in this particular field who meaningfully engages writers around the world, and is a classics-lover paying attention to writers that don’t look like she does. I have read some obscure books on this topic, and it’s lovely to have this discussion made accessible and brief. As you can see in the below quotations, Hooten Wilson often makes thought-provoking points that are worth marking and revisiting. Maybe, just skip the anecdotes if they bother you as they do me. They’re not where the real insight lies anyway.
Reading for the Love of God is structured with seven key chapters, four “bookmarks” (St Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, Dorothy L. Sayers), and three appendices. The first is a “Twofold Reading of Flannery O’Connor’s ‘The River,’” the second “Frequently Asked Questions” that says the exact same thing every book on reading does, and the third is very short, age-graded reading lists of great books. This is a short book that would make a great gift for a reader in your life as long as she’s not the clowned-upon student in chapter 3.
-----
“From our Jewish mothers and fathers, we Christians inherited this love and reverence for the Word and for words. When Mary the Mother of God accepted the privilege of carrying the Messiah, she responded with words drawn from the Old Testament. She imitated Hannah and Deborah by creating her own hymn of praise, in which she referenced a dozen Scriptures. In the Middle Ages, Mary was depicted in the annunciation paintings with a book before her. It was central to the Christian identity that the mother of the Logos, the woman who carried the Word within her womb, first carried it within her heart. Not only does Mary exemplify a faithful Jew in her attention to Scripture, but she shows Christians what it means to embody the Word.” (13)
“For Julian [of Norwich], if love is the meaning and love can be enacted in a variety of lived responses over time and place, then a text overflows with ways of meaning….If ‘love’ is what it means, then Julian’s words become a chorus for us, a song that we do not want to get out of our heads, and one that we can practice intentionally living, as she herself illustrates. Julian shows that textual interpretation is more than a game of deciphering codes; reading precipitates a perpetual cycle of lives in which the meaning is made incarnate….Julian insinuates that the work God began through revelations to her is not finished simply because she ceases in writing about them; they have further life in her readers.” (74-75)
-----
I did not receive an advance copy of this book; my pre-order arrived early.
I found many of her ideas engaging, and the way she handles texts is illuminating and joyous. She makes me want to read more, scribble down titles. After this I will head out to balloon my library’s circulation numbers, which is my solemn destiny. I am always ready for more books on books!
However, there is an issue for me in Hooten Wilson’s writing that I have found elsewhere. (Her previous book, The Scandal of Holiness, sits partially unread on my shelves because I hadn’t read any of the books it discusses. Most were on my list already but that had never before happened to me with a bibliomemoir.) When she includes personal anecdotes, Hooten Wilson almost always shares a story where she is the smart one and her interlocutor fails to live up to her standards. Chapter 3 begins with an especially bitter-tasting example of Hooten Wilson setting up a student to look foolish in front of the whole class, and she writes it with “too much relish.” (49-50) It sounded like a Kurtis Conner bit, what the young folks call “clowning” on someone.
Despite the many self-aggrandizing and others-belittling anecdotes (ya really couldn’t think of one time you learned from a peer, hmm?), I found Reading for the Love of God worth my engagement. Hooten Wilson displays marvelous humility and insight when reading books. When reading her acknowledgements, I wondered, where are those companions in the pages of this book? Toss out the bland, The Office-level cringe humor and throw in those meaty conversations! Hooten Wilson is one of the few in this particular field who meaningfully engages writers around the world, and is a classics-lover paying attention to writers that don’t look like she does. I have read some obscure books on this topic, and it’s lovely to have this discussion made accessible and brief. As you can see in the below quotations, Hooten Wilson often makes thought-provoking points that are worth marking and revisiting. Maybe, just skip the anecdotes if they bother you as they do me. They’re not where the real insight lies anyway.
Reading for the Love of God is structured with seven key chapters, four “bookmarks” (St Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, Dorothy L. Sayers), and three appendices. The first is a “Twofold Reading of Flannery O’Connor’s ‘The River,’” the second “Frequently Asked Questions” that says the exact same thing every book on reading does, and the third is very short, age-graded reading lists of great books. This is a short book that would make a great gift for a reader in your life as long as she’s not the clowned-upon student in chapter 3.
-----
“From our Jewish mothers and fathers, we Christians inherited this love and reverence for the Word and for words. When Mary the Mother of God accepted the privilege of carrying the Messiah, she responded with words drawn from the Old Testament. She imitated Hannah and Deborah by creating her own hymn of praise, in which she referenced a dozen Scriptures. In the Middle Ages, Mary was depicted in the annunciation paintings with a book before her. It was central to the Christian identity that the mother of the Logos, the woman who carried the Word within her womb, first carried it within her heart. Not only does Mary exemplify a faithful Jew in her attention to Scripture, but she shows Christians what it means to embody the Word.” (13)
“For Julian [of Norwich], if love is the meaning and love can be enacted in a variety of lived responses over time and place, then a text overflows with ways of meaning….If ‘love’ is what it means, then Julian’s words become a chorus for us, a song that we do not want to get out of our heads, and one that we can practice intentionally living, as she herself illustrates. Julian shows that textual interpretation is more than a game of deciphering codes; reading precipitates a perpetual cycle of lives in which the meaning is made incarnate….Julian insinuates that the work God began through revelations to her is not finished simply because she ceases in writing about them; they have further life in her readers.” (74-75)
-----
I did not receive an advance copy of this book; my pre-order arrived early.
April 27, 2026
Thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Did Not Finish
April 23, 2023I couldn’t finish this book. I appreciate the author and her attempt to flesh out how reading and loving God coincide, but it was way too academic for me to enjoy. It felt like I was reading a thesis or a research paper. I guess it just wasn’t what I was expecting and that’s okay. Stopped at 40%.
April 23, 2023
This is, more or less, a Christian theology of reading. And it’s great. For Wilson, reading is a spiritual practice that aids us in the Christian life. It is for contemplation and transformation: “While reading cannot induce virtue and cannot make us more Christian by osmosis, the practice of reading well can increase our ways of seeing as contemplatives and beholders, those with imaginations that align more fully with the eyes of Scripture” (11). Reading is not something we do to be impressive or self-aggrandizing. Rather, reading helps us to see the divine invitation in the world to wonder and amazement at God’s work in creation. In beholding this, we are laid low and made to be more like Christ - the great hope of all Christians. In short, reading and spirituality go hand in hand, because reading is for wisdom and the love of God.
In between chapters on the Quadriga, the Trinity, and Augustine’s distinction between “use” and “enjoy,” Wilson has four “bookmarks” in which she examines the reading approach of greats like Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy Sayers. These were nice touches and her chapter on Douglass was great, helping us to see how reading and liberation correspond to one another, and how reading old books helps to liberate us from the dehumanizing technocratic impulses of our day. The book ends nicely with a few appendices, including a reading list of Great Books. Tolle lege!
Though there were a few points at which Wilson was a bit vague and fuzzy (she wasn’t always quite explicit about how to read fiction books according to the four-fold sense, or if that chapter was talking specifically about Scripture), the book is a great introduction to the theological significance of reading - a kind of book that is actually relatively rare. The only thing it’s missing is a chapter on desire and poetry!
“Since the early church, Christians have prized words. We should continue to be those weirdos who spend less time in the virtual ether and more time in stories, poetry, and drama.” (154).
In between chapters on the Quadriga, the Trinity, and Augustine’s distinction between “use” and “enjoy,” Wilson has four “bookmarks” in which she examines the reading approach of greats like Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy Sayers. These were nice touches and her chapter on Douglass was great, helping us to see how reading and liberation correspond to one another, and how reading old books helps to liberate us from the dehumanizing technocratic impulses of our day. The book ends nicely with a few appendices, including a reading list of Great Books. Tolle lege!
Though there were a few points at which Wilson was a bit vague and fuzzy (she wasn’t always quite explicit about how to read fiction books according to the four-fold sense, or if that chapter was talking specifically about Scripture), the book is a great introduction to the theological significance of reading - a kind of book that is actually relatively rare. The only thing it’s missing is a chapter on desire and poetry!
“Since the early church, Christians have prized words. We should continue to be those weirdos who spend less time in the virtual ether and more time in stories, poetry, and drama.” (154).
September 29, 2023
A powerful, eloquent read. I enjoyed her unpacking reading contemplatively. She quoted Sayers excessively and I wondered why. Is Sayers really the only one who writes that much about writing and reading?
I loved how Wilson layered history with written works to give context. The book started strong and only got better in the end. The conclusion was maybe the best bit. But all of it was lovely. I listened to the audio so I missed a lot and the narrator wasn't great but the content won over the form.
I loved how Wilson layered history with written works to give context. The book started strong and only got better in the end. The conclusion was maybe the best bit. But all of it was lovely. I listened to the audio so I missed a lot and the narrator wasn't great but the content won over the form.
November 3, 2023
3.5 stars. The premise of Reading for the Love of God is that words must get inside you and change you. This is transformation vs. information. Wilson writes that if you want to know how to"eat the book" (Ezek 3:3), learn how to read – not only the Bible but other great books as well – as a spiritual practice.
February 28, 2023
Why do we read? Some read for mere information. Others read for leisure. A few might read for spiritual formation. The latter reason is what this book is about. Spirituality, spiritual disciplines, or spiritual practice all come under spiritual formation. A key question that asks of us is this: Are we reading for the purpose of utility or for enjoyment? With this theme, author Jessica Hooten Wilson takes us through several different ways in which people read before showing us the way forward to better reading. By comparing and contrasting the various forms of readings, she helps us deal with the whys of reading rather than settling merely for the whats. This calls for some paradigm changes in the way we read. Gradually, she turns our attention toward the art of reading well. There are lots of gems in this book that merit not just reading this book, but also reading in general. First, we learn about ourselves and our reading attitude. She invites us to question ourselves on what kind of reader we are, pointing out the many varied reasons people read in the first place. Her hope is that once we recognize what kind of readers we are, we can then see the difference between where we are and Wilson's proposal about where we ought to go. One key feature is the distinction between "critic" and "reader." The former binds one to conquer, master, or manipulate the text for self-purposes while the latter keeps one open for learning and understanding. One uses the text while the other learns from the text. Such a problem has become bigger since the advent of the Internet and digital screens. Second, the debunking of reading "only the Bible argument." She tackles the common questions asked by certain fundamentalists who claim that we should not read any other stuff apart from the Bible. As she points out the differences between the Bible and other literature, she guides us that the key difference is that of authority in the order of Sacred Text (Bible), Trustworthy Authors, and followed by the rest. For believers, this is an important question that Wilson deals with eloquently to argue that any Christian should recognize that God speaks not only through the written Word but also through the language of Truth. Third, Wilson hones in on the difference between enjoying and using, something that should make us pause to reflect on our reading habits. Reading for pleasure and enjoyment is more than simply gaining facts or information. Just as beauty prompts us to behold rather than analyze, reading for love and enjoyment turns us toward love and to God. Fourth, Wilson asks the question "Do good books make a person good?" In short, not necessary, but it provides the fodder to grow in that direction. Fifth, Wilson draws our attention to the Reading Trinity: Author, Reader, Text (the ART). She describes these three ways of reading before making a case for a discerning use of all. Sixth, she introduces to us another reading paradigm via the four senses of reading, more specifically, how the early church reads the biblical text: "Literal, Figurative, Moral, and Anagogical" before showing us the four spiritual ways of reading, as advocated by the 12th Century spiritual master, Guigo II: Lectio, Meditatio, Oratio, and Contemplatio. Finally, reading aids memory, and in turn helps a culture to flourish. Going back to the Old Testament, she reminds us that memory-keeping is a moral responsibility. Lest we forget, we risk repeating old mistakes. Against the over-reliance on our digital devices, she lists for us the various ways in which we can exercise our memory: Liturgy, copying, reciting, illustrating, mapping, repeating, and so on.
My Thoughts
==============
This is one of the best books I have read about learning to read. Those of us who have read Mortimer Adler's classic work, "How to Read a Book" would recall the four different levels of reading. Each level represents a more advanced kind of reading or intelligent reading. Wilson's contribution is not to supplant but to supplement this book with an emphasis on reading spiritually. While Adler's work is a non-Christian perspective of the world of reading, Wilson's book approaches from a Christian perspective about reading books of both spiritual and secular origins. Non-Christians can also benefit because Wilson takes special care to point out that as far as Truth is concerned, there is no dichotomy between Christian versus non-Christian books. She not only draws material from popular Christian authors like Augustine, St Teresa of Avila, Søren Kierkegaard, Flannery O'Connor, G.K. Chesterton, CS Lewis, Eugene Peterson, etc; she encourages us to read Albert Camus, Confucius, Frederich Nietzsche, George Orwell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Lao Tzu, Plato, etc. Her recommended list is a great resource to begin practicing our reading abilities. It comprises both children's and classic works; fiction and non-fiction; poetry and prose; novels and short stories, spiritual and others, etc. Why do I recommend this book? Let me offer three quick reasons.
First, we need to bring back the love for reading good books. Today, more people are reading stuff off the Internet. They mine websites for information. They comb social media for updates. They search for news to read. It is increasingly our way of seeing the world through the tiny screens of our phones, tablets, and conventional computers. Some even claim that they are always reading books, such as FaceBook! It has been reported that people trying to read off the Internet or eBooks, tend to browse rather than read. Eyeballs on digital screens tend to skim words on the page instead of actually reading from top to bottom. Statistically, people read more on the top half of the screen instead of the bottom half. She calls for us to turn away from the "seduction of screens" toward the "love of the book," in particular, the love of God that drives our reading. This brings us to the second reason why this book is highly recommended: It motivates one to read widely. By addressing concerns about whether to read Christian books vs non-Christian books, secular or spiritual, Wilson peels away the superficial labels to help us prioritize Truth over simplistic labels. Such labels include the tendency to avoid certain authors on the basis of their beliefs or prejudices. In a society that is increasingly intolerant of any kind of perceived discrimination, people are practicing a new form of "book-burning" by ostracizing books written by authors accused of blatantly unacceptable practices like gender inequality, racial prejudice, white supremacy, etc. Increasingly, mainstream views are painting alternative views as pariahs to be banned. For instance, people and book distributors supporting the LGBTQ rainbow movement are starting to marginalize books from authors who disagree or dissent from the mainstream. (See J.K Rowling.) This is where Wilson's trinity of reading is helpful. Do not let the "Reader-Response" emotion overwhelm the other two branches of authorial intent of the book, and the text itself. Hopefully, this book can calm down passionate advocates from all sides to learn to view books based on their merit rather than label-tainted colours.
Finally, Wilson does not just tell us what to read, she shows us how to read. Using examples from the lives of Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, Dorothy Sayers, and many more, readers learn to connect the text with the author. In doing so, she subtly shows us how to bring in the third party: Us. Good reading means we learn to read well and enjoy the reading process. We learn not just the mere mechanics of reading but also the motivation for reading. We let the love of God help us to read not just the Bible, but other good books. We can play our part by pushing back against the superficial reading and browsing that many people do nowadays. We learn not to read in order to control or criticize but to adopt a stance of humility and willingness to learn. Many people are satisfied with mere summaries of a book or article. When they do that, they reduce the beauty of a book to pointers and memorable quips. We need to shun such attitudes to move away from information-seeking toward using reading to help us be better readers and better people. In an Internet world, information reigns supreme. We need something better, like spiritual discernment, wise selection, Spiritual formation into Christlikeness, and so on. This book shows us the way.
Jessica Hooten Wilson (PhD, Baylor University) is the inaugural Visiting Scholar of Liberal Arts at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She previously taught at the University of Dallas. She is the author of The Scandal of Holiness, Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky (winner of a 2018 Christianity Today Book of the Year Award), and two books on Walker Percy. She is also the coeditor of Learning the Good Life and Solzhenitsyn and American Culture. Wilson speaks around the world on topics as varied as Russian novelists, Catholic thinkers, and Christian ways of reading.
Rating: 5 stars of 5.
conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of Brazos Press and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.
My Thoughts
==============
This is one of the best books I have read about learning to read. Those of us who have read Mortimer Adler's classic work, "How to Read a Book" would recall the four different levels of reading. Each level represents a more advanced kind of reading or intelligent reading. Wilson's contribution is not to supplant but to supplement this book with an emphasis on reading spiritually. While Adler's work is a non-Christian perspective of the world of reading, Wilson's book approaches from a Christian perspective about reading books of both spiritual and secular origins. Non-Christians can also benefit because Wilson takes special care to point out that as far as Truth is concerned, there is no dichotomy between Christian versus non-Christian books. She not only draws material from popular Christian authors like Augustine, St Teresa of Avila, Søren Kierkegaard, Flannery O'Connor, G.K. Chesterton, CS Lewis, Eugene Peterson, etc; she encourages us to read Albert Camus, Confucius, Frederich Nietzsche, George Orwell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Lao Tzu, Plato, etc. Her recommended list is a great resource to begin practicing our reading abilities. It comprises both children's and classic works; fiction and non-fiction; poetry and prose; novels and short stories, spiritual and others, etc. Why do I recommend this book? Let me offer three quick reasons.
First, we need to bring back the love for reading good books. Today, more people are reading stuff off the Internet. They mine websites for information. They comb social media for updates. They search for news to read. It is increasingly our way of seeing the world through the tiny screens of our phones, tablets, and conventional computers. Some even claim that they are always reading books, such as FaceBook! It has been reported that people trying to read off the Internet or eBooks, tend to browse rather than read. Eyeballs on digital screens tend to skim words on the page instead of actually reading from top to bottom. Statistically, people read more on the top half of the screen instead of the bottom half. She calls for us to turn away from the "seduction of screens" toward the "love of the book," in particular, the love of God that drives our reading. This brings us to the second reason why this book is highly recommended: It motivates one to read widely. By addressing concerns about whether to read Christian books vs non-Christian books, secular or spiritual, Wilson peels away the superficial labels to help us prioritize Truth over simplistic labels. Such labels include the tendency to avoid certain authors on the basis of their beliefs or prejudices. In a society that is increasingly intolerant of any kind of perceived discrimination, people are practicing a new form of "book-burning" by ostracizing books written by authors accused of blatantly unacceptable practices like gender inequality, racial prejudice, white supremacy, etc. Increasingly, mainstream views are painting alternative views as pariahs to be banned. For instance, people and book distributors supporting the LGBTQ rainbow movement are starting to marginalize books from authors who disagree or dissent from the mainstream. (See J.K Rowling.) This is where Wilson's trinity of reading is helpful. Do not let the "Reader-Response" emotion overwhelm the other two branches of authorial intent of the book, and the text itself. Hopefully, this book can calm down passionate advocates from all sides to learn to view books based on their merit rather than label-tainted colours.
Finally, Wilson does not just tell us what to read, she shows us how to read. Using examples from the lives of Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, Dorothy Sayers, and many more, readers learn to connect the text with the author. In doing so, she subtly shows us how to bring in the third party: Us. Good reading means we learn to read well and enjoy the reading process. We learn not just the mere mechanics of reading but also the motivation for reading. We let the love of God help us to read not just the Bible, but other good books. We can play our part by pushing back against the superficial reading and browsing that many people do nowadays. We learn not to read in order to control or criticize but to adopt a stance of humility and willingness to learn. Many people are satisfied with mere summaries of a book or article. When they do that, they reduce the beauty of a book to pointers and memorable quips. We need to shun such attitudes to move away from information-seeking toward using reading to help us be better readers and better people. In an Internet world, information reigns supreme. We need something better, like spiritual discernment, wise selection, Spiritual formation into Christlikeness, and so on. This book shows us the way.
Jessica Hooten Wilson (PhD, Baylor University) is the inaugural Visiting Scholar of Liberal Arts at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She previously taught at the University of Dallas. She is the author of The Scandal of Holiness, Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky (winner of a 2018 Christianity Today Book of the Year Award), and two books on Walker Percy. She is also the coeditor of Learning the Good Life and Solzhenitsyn and American Culture. Wilson speaks around the world on topics as varied as Russian novelists, Catholic thinkers, and Christian ways of reading.
Rating: 5 stars of 5.
conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of Brazos Press and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.
January 19, 2026
This book seems to be written for non-readers, who are very new or young Christians. In other words, I am not the right audience.
One of the questions answered in this book is “Why would anyone read anything but the Bible?” The answers to this seem... blatantly obvious to me. Most of the things in this book are like that. I reacted to most of the content here with “…well, duh.”
I’ll be generous and give it three stars. I think it’s just that I’ve already heard most of what’s in this book from other sources first. This would be a good book for high schoolers or young college students.
Side Note:
Wilson emphasizes finding "spiritual" meaning in all texts. She offers lots of caveats with this, but I fear most readers will still walk away from this assuming one has to "decode" any spiritual symbolism in the art they read, rather than appreciating art for art's sake.
There's a couple of references that hint at Roman Catholicism, but generally this doesn't push for a solely RC point of view.
Debating whether I still want to read The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints--which seems like the same thing as this book?
One of the questions answered in this book is “Why would anyone read anything but the Bible?” The answers to this seem... blatantly obvious to me. Most of the things in this book are like that. I reacted to most of the content here with “…well, duh.”
I’ll be generous and give it three stars. I think it’s just that I’ve already heard most of what’s in this book from other sources first. This would be a good book for high schoolers or young college students.
Side Note:
Wilson emphasizes finding "spiritual" meaning in all texts. She offers lots of caveats with this, but I fear most readers will still walk away from this assuming one has to "decode" any spiritual symbolism in the art they read, rather than appreciating art for art's sake.
There's a couple of references that hint at Roman Catholicism, but generally this doesn't push for a solely RC point of view.
Debating whether I still want to read The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints--which seems like the same thing as this book?
May 6, 2026
“Through the eyes of the Word, we read everything else.”
I truly believe that reading is one of our most important spiritual disciplines as Christians. Unfortunately, it’s also one in which most of us are severely lacking. Reading for the Love of God explains why reading should be treated as a spiritual discipline, how to implement that in your life, and how we as a society have largely fallen away from it. This little book is informative and educational while also being enjoyable and wonderfully readable, which is often a difficult balance to strike. I found this such an impactful work, one that I will be thinking about and revisiting often.
“We read because without books our world shrinks, our empathy thins, and our liberty wanes. We read for the same reason that people have read—and shared poems or stories—for thousands of years: because our eyes are not enough by which to see.”
Wilson takes her thesis a step further by demonstrating what reading as a spiritual discipline looked like in the lives of four brilliant models from history: St. Augustine of Hippo, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglas, and Dorothy L Sayers. I found these real-world examples both helpful and incredibly interesting. I loved learning more about all four of these individuals and seeing how the spiritual reading life has changed over the centuries, as well as discovering reasons and ways to recapture some of what has been lost.
“Great books should light a fire within the reader’s soul to be more like the heroes and saints within those pages.”
I was especially taken with chapter 5, “What does the Trinity have to do with the ART of reading?” In this chapter, Wilson explores how literary criticism and deconstructionism have killed off so much of our ability to read wisely and well. Today, if a book says something we disagree with, or it we cannot see ourselves in it from a demographic sense, then it is a book that should be forgotten or cancelled. Which threatens to rid our world of powerful stories that have stood the test of time for a reason. Wilson attempts here to help us unlearn the poor reading habits we were taught in school and to instead learn to read more deeply and objectively.
“The Bible is weird. And lovely. And awe-inspiring. It is like no other book that has ever been written. It is the Book of books, the foundation of every story, and the lens through which Christians see all other books.”
Reading for the Love of God is a fantastic book, one that I am so glad to have come across and experienced. If you’re looking to deepen your reading life, and to deepen your walk with God through what you read, this is a book that needs to find its way into your hands.
“Since the early church, Christians have prized words. We should continue to be those weirdos who spend less time in the virtual ether and more time in stories, poetry, and drama.”
Below are a heaping handful of the quotes that I found most impactful. These are for my own future reference, but feel free to peruse them for yourself!
“For innumerable souls, fiction has proved to be a powerful vehicle for Christian conversion.”
“Our reading of other literature should be in constant dialogue with our Bible reading.”
“Against the seduction of screens, we must return to the love of the book, beginning and ending with the Bible but including other books that enlighten Scripture for us and show us how to live like Jesus in our own time and place. Reading must be a daily spiritual practice for the Christian.”
“In reality, the most lovely stories will show us thousands of reflections of Christ in the faces of dozens of characters. The truthfulness by which the authors depict the human beings in their work determines how much we will be able to see the Human One in the story. We should look for him everywhere.”
“The devil prowls around unseen, but fiction, by describing the world as it is, unmasks him. No matter how covert the demonic operations, poetry undoes lies with truth.”
“The most powerful stories are those that have us cast stones at our own reflections.”
“We are meant to delight in the beautiful and cultivate beauty, as much as we are asked to know the true and to follow the good.”
“To say God is useless, then, as I began, is not to say that God does not matter, but the opposite. God matters most: he is the end and thus cannot be used for anything.”
“Reading is a lifelong journey, just as sanctification or education is.”
“How much are we affected by the culture we consume?”
“Reading literature will not produce all the answers, for the greatest of stories require a lifetime of rereading…reading should humble us and delight us with its mystery. We do not have to have all the answers.”
“After years of experiencing this reader-centered teaching—which likely started when we were young—we assume our right to determine the worth of a piece of literature based on our response to it…Instead of discovering meaning within the text, in this method of reading, the work of art has value only if we grant it value…this way of reading also leads readers to look for themselves within the text. In order for a book to be meaningful, they must see themselves in it, often not in a deeply human way…their demographic represented, rather than human nature universally explored.”
“The next attack on the reading experience came when we objectified the book or poem, placing it beneath a microscope, or worse, taking it apart like scientists disassembling a cadaver. The ways of destroying a text are legion. One possibility—we fall for deconstructionism and ply with the endless meaning of the words until the words mean nothing. Or we assume that the text is all-encompassing, apart from its writer or reader, location all meaning exclusively within its words.”
“So we practice love for the text, looking for what is good and seeing redemption needed in what is not. To read for the presence of Christ in a book is also to have your eyes and ears ready to find him when he appears.”
“The act of reading should be enjoyable, and we do not want to steal all the fun out of the game by pulling back the curtain and baring the gears. This exploration of what constitutes reading should be more akin to opening the wardrobe door and finding a whole world alive just behind the surface of the ordinary.”
“The purpose of highlighting how to read should be to learn the steps of the dance, that we may be free to enjoy our reading. After all, at its best, reading is an invitation to play.”
“Reading empowers people to think, to change their situation and that of others, and to not be manipulated by those who seek to control them.”
“It is at the peril of our future that we ignore the books of the past and the voices of the dead…”
“If we are to overcome the control of media, advertising, fear tactics, and contemporary problems that loom overly large, we need a flourishing reading life. In the Word is freedom.”
“After we read the Scriptures, we see everything through its lens—other books, other people, ourselves, and especially God. We become beholders, though who contemplate what they see. Through the eyes of the Word, we read everything else.”
“Too few people can read well: we cannot accurately decipher words within contexts, follow complex sentences, or attend to the details of a passage or poem.”
“If you are to read closely, with attention, you will be harvesting out the words from the letters before you.”
“When reading Scripture, we are feeding on the Word.”
“To read literature well, we should articulate the choice words aloud, delighting in the sounds of sentences and the ways the beautiful diction tastes.”
“Too often, contemporary readers jump past what a text actually says to what they think it means.”
“Stories and poems, as I’ve mentioned, are not problems to be solves but works to be enjoyed. This enjoyment begins by appreciating the work on its literal level.”
“God spoke creation into existence with words, Christ calls himself the Word, and God’s laws are called his Ten Words, thus all this knowledge points to words being saturated with spiritual potency.”
“Words invite us to consider their previous uses, contexts, and worlds. We gain a fuller understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness from meditating on a word’s pattern found throughout literature, history, and tradition.”
“Meditating on the Bible should lead us not to selfish observations or fanciful conclusions but to becoming better friends with the presence within the book—Christ himself.”
“We’re so accustomed to passive entertainment that informs us what to feel and think about a story, through camera angles, pacing, music, and so forth, that our imaginations have become rather lazy.”
“For centuries, Christians saw the whole world in light of what they had practiced reading within texts. We should draw from these predecessors what is worthy of imitation and reclaim these lost ways of encountering the Lord through his words and works.”
“There is so much to see and behold that should not be taken for granted, so much from which to glean more knowledge of God. If we are seeking meaning rather than assuming meaninglessness, we will be rewarded by our rich reading practices.”
“There is an admonition not to forget our history, for such amnesia increases the spread of darkness in the world…hope smolders in the books of culture, waiting to ignite the remnant against those forces that threaten to blot it out entirely.”
“In our hearts, to our children, at our dinner tables, before we sleep, before we rise, all over our homes, the words of God are to be everywhere so that we remember them. To remember the words of God, we must fill the spaces of our lives with them. Only then will they be written in our hearts.”
“We should take care to remember what we have loved from a book while taking heart that even what is forgotten has formed us.”
“Much of what has been branded Christian fiction shows little care for or dedication to aesthetics. Form has been severed from content, with the emphasis falling on the latter. Such a dichotomy denies the reality of our theology. If we are embodied souls, if the Word has become flesh, if the letter is bound with the spirit, then we cannot create convincing messages with faulty forms.”
“…we become more attached to what is familiar than devoted to what is true.”
“We have been conditioned by our churches and culture to read Scripture in certain ways, some of those ways lovely and accurate, but others that cloud our knowledge of the Scriptures from their real meaning and significance.”
“Great literature recasts the known into a different setting or form or language so that we may see and hear the truth as it is.”
“What was undone at the tower of Babel by human pride is redeemed by Pentecost…”
“Words not only show how a culture thinks, but they reveal the lens through which a culture is created.”
“The Lord is at work in all our work, whether adapting Bible stories to dramas, translating epic poems, or writing detective novels. The artist is required to subject the work to God, and the reader is entrusted with reading that work well.”
“How much does the story tell the truth about the world? Does it highlight the patterns of reality, thread the themes together in such a way that we would not have seen it before?”
“If fiction is art, whether those stories be detective bestsellers or epics or romances, they should tell the truth about the world. Maybe not plainly…Maybe in fiction the truth is slant. But good fiction does tell the truth, the highest truth.”
“A pious person who spends time reading great books well has more resources needed to act wisely in an impious age.”
“In a world that tries to convince us that we are computers or animals, that treats us like automatons or worker bees, what better protest than the reading life?”
“By reading in concert, we hand on cultural memory, we draw people into shared experiences, and we unify diverse voices in a beautiful harmony. The reading life is a life that loves the Word.”
“…in the beginning was the Word, and in the end is the book of life.”
March 31, 2023
Reading for the Love of God by Jessica Hooten Wilson starts off with descriptive imagery of the Apostle John in Revelation as he consumes a book. I continue to sit with this depiction after finishing Reading for the Love of God because it arrested my attention and Wilson’s related thoughts are incredibly applicable to reading most any book. The rest of Reading for the Love of God is just as interesting and challenging as the start.
Reading for the Love of God is academic in tone, style, and complexity. Wilson often refers to ancient literature and medieval monastic practices as she explains how to consume great literature and apply its lessons to modern spiritual life. I confess, I did not completely understand “use” and “enjoy” in chapter three, but that is simply a reason to reread and learn. My favorite chapters were “Reading Like Frederick Douglass” and “How Can You Remember What You Read”.
I recommend Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice by Jessica Hooten Wilson to Christian readers who desire to learn from great works of literature and apply those lessons to enhance one’s spiritual life. Naturally, Wilson stresses the importance of regularly consuming Scripture as well as literary works. A list of suggested reading for all ages is included. Four stars.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I was provided a copy of this book by the author or publisher. All opinions in this review are my own.
Reading for the Love of God is academic in tone, style, and complexity. Wilson often refers to ancient literature and medieval monastic practices as she explains how to consume great literature and apply its lessons to modern spiritual life. I confess, I did not completely understand “use” and “enjoy” in chapter three, but that is simply a reason to reread and learn. My favorite chapters were “Reading Like Frederick Douglass” and “How Can You Remember What You Read”.
I recommend Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice by Jessica Hooten Wilson to Christian readers who desire to learn from great works of literature and apply those lessons to enhance one’s spiritual life. Naturally, Wilson stresses the importance of regularly consuming Scripture as well as literary works. A list of suggested reading for all ages is included. Four stars.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I was provided a copy of this book by the author or publisher. All opinions in this review are my own.
Read
June 16, 2023Another book that was a lovely listen, but demanded I read the print edition to capture quotes and slow the reading pace down. More in about a month!
July 9, 2023
Hooten Wilson takes C.S. Lewis's Experiment in Criticism, expands, and contemporizes it. While Lewis focused mainly on what kind of readers we are, Hooten Wilson asks what kind of Christian readers we are. In doing so, she elevates God as the creator and shows how reading as a spiritual practice (even secular literature) increases our love for God and neighbor. She answers questions like why should read things outside of the Bible and faces head-on the fear so prevalent in Christian societies today about certain subjects found in books. There is a chapter on the Trinity that is an absolute must-read. The relationships she draws to the reader, author and so on was wonderful. The reading experience gets a bit bogged down with extensive quotes and names of authors in a way her previous book did not, but overall, very much worth reading!
March 25, 2023
I have been particularly loving reading about reading lately (as I’m sure my latest reads on Goodreads indicate) so “Reading for the Love of God” was a logical choice as well as a pleasurable one!
I have always found myself attracted more to fiction than nonfiction and Hooten Wilson does a remarkable job advocating for Christians to read widely and look for our Creator wherever we do read pulling from examples like Dorothy Sayers and Frederick Douglass (to name only a few of the many).
The entire body of the book is excellent but my favorite part was the appendices! The author gives an example of how to read in the way she advocates for, answers some frequently asked questions and finally provides reading lists (!!!!). I am particularly excited to dive into her recommendations for young readers with my oldest daughter.
Thanks to NetGalley for an advance reader copy of the book for my honest review.
I have always found myself attracted more to fiction than nonfiction and Hooten Wilson does a remarkable job advocating for Christians to read widely and look for our Creator wherever we do read pulling from examples like Dorothy Sayers and Frederick Douglass (to name only a few of the many).
The entire body of the book is excellent but my favorite part was the appendices! The author gives an example of how to read in the way she advocates for, answers some frequently asked questions and finally provides reading lists (!!!!). I am particularly excited to dive into her recommendations for young readers with my oldest daughter.
Thanks to NetGalley for an advance reader copy of the book for my honest review.
June 9, 2025
This was so excellent. It took me a while to read because I really had to think deeply about it. From the conclusion:
“In the midst of chaos and noise, the call to read may sound silly. Don’t we need to be improving the world? Fighting injustice? Stopping wars, curing illnesses, feeding the poor? Yes, of course. I believe in the need for beautification, revolution, and acts of mercy. However, we must imagine the ends that we are fighting for. Reading well encourages us to join these impermanent battles, to see the good causes from the evil machinations, and to know truth from falsehood. A pious person who spends time reading great books well has more resources needed to act wisely in an impious age. Opening a book should not be the final goal but the invitation to a broader vision.”
“In the midst of chaos and noise, the call to read may sound silly. Don’t we need to be improving the world? Fighting injustice? Stopping wars, curing illnesses, feeding the poor? Yes, of course. I believe in the need for beautification, revolution, and acts of mercy. However, we must imagine the ends that we are fighting for. Reading well encourages us to join these impermanent battles, to see the good causes from the evil machinations, and to know truth from falsehood. A pious person who spends time reading great books well has more resources needed to act wisely in an impious age. Opening a book should not be the final goal but the invitation to a broader vision.”
January 17, 2025
Phenomenal apologetic for reading well - one of the best Christian approaches to reading and texts that I've read, and sourced deeply from Scripture and Inklings (or those adjacent to them) - what's not to love? This has sparked some wonderful conversations for myself and my students.
January 6, 2025
“In reading other books, we practice reading the Bible; and in reading the Bible, we read other books by that lens.” pg 3
“When we read a work so closely that it becomes part of how we see the world, then we will create under its influence. We will read all else by its light. Hence, reading Scripture should be our primary and daily reading.” pg 125
“When we read a work so closely that it becomes part of how we see the world, then we will create under its influence. We will read all else by its light. Hence, reading Scripture should be our primary and daily reading.” pg 125
October 25, 2025
Mais um livro de 2024. Incrivelmente bom! Este ano li outro livro desta autora que também gostei. É um leitura impactante que mexe com a cosmovisão que nos foi passada, transformando Deus naquilo que Ele realmente é: Amor!
June 6, 2024
3.5, a good and helpful read! Appreciated her call to read widely and with a “critical embrace.” She made a strong argument that reading quality literature equips the reader to better understand Scripture, while reading Scripture makes a reader a better judge of what literature’s actually worth their time.
September 29, 2025
I like the idea that Christians are called to be bookish people.
January 8, 2024
4.5 for the text, 2 for the audiobook narrator
April 27, 2025
Nunca es fácil hablar de mi fe, especialmente porque podría expresar ideas profundamente subjetivas basadas en mi experiencia personal. Sin embargo, me acerqué a este libro porque había leído previamente “Bellamente distintas”, donde uno de los capítulos abordaba el valor de la literatura en la vida cristiana. La autora, Jessica Hooten Wilson, tiene un doctorado en Teología, lo cual me dio confianza en que sería un libro bien fundamentado, escrito por una profesional en estudios bíblicos.
Siempre me ha parecido fascinante que los musulmanes se refieren a nosotros los cristianos como “la gente del libro”. En este sentido, creo que el cristianismo tiene una relación íntima con los libros y las palabras. Nuestra fe siempre ha estado vinculada a la Biblia, cuyo nombre significa “libros” en griego. Además, se habla de Jesús como “la Palabra hecha carne”, el Logos, y sabemos que, desde el principio, todo fue creado a través de las palabras.
Las palabras son una clave esencial de nuestra fe y, para mí como lectora, tienen un significado aún más profundo. Las palabras pronunciadas, leídas y elegidas con cuidado poseen una importancia trascendental, capaz de moldear no sólo nuestras creencias, sino también nuestra humanidad.
El libro plantea que leer puede ser también un acto de amor hacia Dios. Explica cómo los primeros cristianos —judíos y gentiles— leían las Escrituras, pero también exploraban la historia, la filosofía, la mitología, las finanzas y otras áreas del conocimiento. Esto reafirma que la búsqueda del saber no está en conflicto con la fe, sino que puede ser una expresión de ella.
C.S. Lewis decía que al leer gran literatura, uno “se convierte en mil hombres y, sin embargo, sigue siendo el mismo”. Esta capacidad de trascender nuestras propias experiencias a través de las palabras refleja un rasgo único del ser humano.
“Dios se reveló a nosotros a través de historias, recogidas en el Antiguo y Nuevo Testamento. Jesús contó historias para enseñar quién es Él. Los misterios de la fe nos desafiarán toda nuestra vida, y solo las historias son lo suficientemente fuertes como para no reducir la fe a una fórmula como x + y = z”.
“Los cristianos estamos llamados a ser los más humanos entre los humanos: los lectores, aquellos que no han olvidado lo que significa ser un pueblo amante de los libros. Porque, en el principio, estaba la Palabra, y al final, está el libro de la vida”.
Leer no es solo un acto pasivo; quizás sea lo más humano que hemos hecho en la tradición cristiana. Somos muchas cosas, pero las palabras siempre han dado forma a las diversas maneras en que intentamos comprender y contener la existencia humana. Los libros y las palabras están intrínsecamente unidos. Como dice el libro: “Porque al leer en conjunto, transmitimos la memoria cultural, conectamos a las personas mediante experiencias compartidas y unificamos voces diversas en una hermosa armonía”.
Siempre me ha parecido fascinante que los musulmanes se refieren a nosotros los cristianos como “la gente del libro”. En este sentido, creo que el cristianismo tiene una relación íntima con los libros y las palabras. Nuestra fe siempre ha estado vinculada a la Biblia, cuyo nombre significa “libros” en griego. Además, se habla de Jesús como “la Palabra hecha carne”, el Logos, y sabemos que, desde el principio, todo fue creado a través de las palabras.
Las palabras son una clave esencial de nuestra fe y, para mí como lectora, tienen un significado aún más profundo. Las palabras pronunciadas, leídas y elegidas con cuidado poseen una importancia trascendental, capaz de moldear no sólo nuestras creencias, sino también nuestra humanidad.
El libro plantea que leer puede ser también un acto de amor hacia Dios. Explica cómo los primeros cristianos —judíos y gentiles— leían las Escrituras, pero también exploraban la historia, la filosofía, la mitología, las finanzas y otras áreas del conocimiento. Esto reafirma que la búsqueda del saber no está en conflicto con la fe, sino que puede ser una expresión de ella.
C.S. Lewis decía que al leer gran literatura, uno “se convierte en mil hombres y, sin embargo, sigue siendo el mismo”. Esta capacidad de trascender nuestras propias experiencias a través de las palabras refleja un rasgo único del ser humano.
“Dios se reveló a nosotros a través de historias, recogidas en el Antiguo y Nuevo Testamento. Jesús contó historias para enseñar quién es Él. Los misterios de la fe nos desafiarán toda nuestra vida, y solo las historias son lo suficientemente fuertes como para no reducir la fe a una fórmula como x + y = z”.
“Los cristianos estamos llamados a ser los más humanos entre los humanos: los lectores, aquellos que no han olvidado lo que significa ser un pueblo amante de los libros. Porque, en el principio, estaba la Palabra, y al final, está el libro de la vida”.
Leer no es solo un acto pasivo; quizás sea lo más humano que hemos hecho en la tradición cristiana. Somos muchas cosas, pero las palabras siempre han dado forma a las diversas maneras en que intentamos comprender y contener la existencia humana. Los libros y las palabras están intrínsecamente unidos. Como dice el libro: “Porque al leer en conjunto, transmitimos la memoria cultural, conectamos a las personas mediante experiencias compartidas y unificamos voces diversas en una hermosa armonía”.
October 29, 2023
I have long regarded my reading as a spiritual practice, so Jessica Hooten Wilson’s thoughts in Reading for the Love of God felt like both confirmation and affirmation to me. As “word creatures,” believers read differently, uniquely, and with an eye toward our responsibility to read with a reverence for words and an appreciation for the power of story as a vehicle for truth. The book carries a crucial question: “What good is reading literature for the Christian?”
Hooten Wilson’s premise makes abundant sense: Our practice of reading the Bible changes the way we read other books, but it is also true that the way we read every other book impacts the way we read the Bible and whether we encounter the Word as it was given. She lifts wisdom from the reading lives of Augustine of Hippo, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglas, and Dorothy Sayers to probe her readers’ thoughts on how and why we read.
I came away from the book with fresh insights that now enrich my appreciation for the reading life:
Until the 12th century, readers in the West read everything out loud. Silent reading, when it eventually began to be practiced, signaled a change from reading as a communal practice to an inward practice. I can’t help but think that maybe we’ve lost something in the transition…
One obstacle to the spiritual reading of a text is our tendency to prioritize message over narrative. When we reduce, for example, the biblical narrative to the level of Aesop’s Fables, we miss the point and the purpose of the original Author. This should change the way I teach the Bible, but it should also affect the way I read fiction. (There’s nothing wrong with simply enjoying a story for its own sake without pawing around in the author’s emotional and biographical entrails for a “deeper” meaning!)
Whenever we open a book, we are engaging with three elements: the author, the reader, and the text. A balanced interpretation of the work requires attention to all three, which argues for a slow and thoughtful approach to our reading life. Unfortunately, the internet is training us all to skim and grab headings on the way by.
Since we are called to LIVE the words of scripture, the counter-cultural practice of contemplation becomes an essential tool for letting the Bible shape our worldview and to give all our reading choices a chance at improving us in some way. As we read the text, pray the text, love the text, and digest the text, we cooperate with God in our own spiritual formation and come to know the Word (and all the words) as living and active.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Brazos Press for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which is, of course, offered freely and with honesty.
Hooten Wilson’s premise makes abundant sense: Our practice of reading the Bible changes the way we read other books, but it is also true that the way we read every other book impacts the way we read the Bible and whether we encounter the Word as it was given. She lifts wisdom from the reading lives of Augustine of Hippo, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglas, and Dorothy Sayers to probe her readers’ thoughts on how and why we read.
I came away from the book with fresh insights that now enrich my appreciation for the reading life:
Until the 12th century, readers in the West read everything out loud. Silent reading, when it eventually began to be practiced, signaled a change from reading as a communal practice to an inward practice. I can’t help but think that maybe we’ve lost something in the transition…
One obstacle to the spiritual reading of a text is our tendency to prioritize message over narrative. When we reduce, for example, the biblical narrative to the level of Aesop’s Fables, we miss the point and the purpose of the original Author. This should change the way I teach the Bible, but it should also affect the way I read fiction. (There’s nothing wrong with simply enjoying a story for its own sake without pawing around in the author’s emotional and biographical entrails for a “deeper” meaning!)
Whenever we open a book, we are engaging with three elements: the author, the reader, and the text. A balanced interpretation of the work requires attention to all three, which argues for a slow and thoughtful approach to our reading life. Unfortunately, the internet is training us all to skim and grab headings on the way by.
Since we are called to LIVE the words of scripture, the counter-cultural practice of contemplation becomes an essential tool for letting the Bible shape our worldview and to give all our reading choices a chance at improving us in some way. As we read the text, pray the text, love the text, and digest the text, we cooperate with God in our own spiritual formation and come to know the Word (and all the words) as living and active.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Brazos Press for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which is, of course, offered freely and with honesty.
January 2, 2026
In this book, Jessica Hooten Wilson offers us a solid apology for reading as a spiritual and formational practice. In it she draws on Aristotelian and Augustinian ideals of reading and learning and combines them with trinitarian understandings of how God is with us in our reading experience and in our own efforts at creating or making. She discusses the primary definition of the word “enjoy,” the critic vs. the reader, and the Church’s four ways of reading Scripture in the medieval world: literal, figurative, moral, and anagogical.
My two critiques are 1.) I wish she had taken issue with C.S. Lewis a few more times, and 2.) her personal stories always seemed to place her on the morally or intellectually higher ground. It would have been more relatable and appealing if she would have related experiences where we could have seen her grow into these views.
Otherwise, this book resonated deeply with me as my pages and pages of notes attest. One interesting feature is her “bookmarks” which Hooten Wilson tucks in between chapters. These include reading paradigms as featured in the lives and writings of St. Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglas, and Dorothy Sayers.
This is a book that kicks against the utilitarianism of modernity and the Enlightenment, that pays homage to the true, the good, and the beautiful, and is deeply concerned with helping us toward habits and disciplines of compassion, empathy, and loving engagement with the world around us and the world which has preceded us.
My two critiques are 1.) I wish she had taken issue with C.S. Lewis a few more times, and 2.) her personal stories always seemed to place her on the morally or intellectually higher ground. It would have been more relatable and appealing if she would have related experiences where we could have seen her grow into these views.
Otherwise, this book resonated deeply with me as my pages and pages of notes attest. One interesting feature is her “bookmarks” which Hooten Wilson tucks in between chapters. These include reading paradigms as featured in the lives and writings of St. Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglas, and Dorothy Sayers.
This is a book that kicks against the utilitarianism of modernity and the Enlightenment, that pays homage to the true, the good, and the beautiful, and is deeply concerned with helping us toward habits and disciplines of compassion, empathy, and loving engagement with the world around us and the world which has preceded us.
March 18, 2024
A deeply encouraging and challenging book for readers wanting to grow and for those who want to begin to read more intentionally. Full of wisdom and clarity about reading spiritually and applying the skills we use when reading novels to reading the Bible and vice versa, leading to a practice of reading well in every area and across the board.
By examining the reading lives of four spiritual and historical leaders, Hooten Wilson urges readers to read holistically with the goal of virtue, to read promiscuously (in the words of Milton) across genres and perspectives, to step into humility and away from criticism, and to allow ourselves to be read by what we read: by novels, poetry, and the word of God.
By examining the reading lives of four spiritual and historical leaders, Hooten Wilson urges readers to read holistically with the goal of virtue, to read promiscuously (in the words of Milton) across genres and perspectives, to step into humility and away from criticism, and to allow ourselves to be read by what we read: by novels, poetry, and the word of God.
March 30, 2023
As a book lover who is also Christian, this book was lovely and spoke to the heart of what I believe about God, the world, literature, and understanding the Bible. As a literature professor at a Christian college, this book is the breath of fresh air my 200 level survey classes have needed. This book explains why we should read things we don’t agree with or that may rub us the wrong way. It explains the necessity of reading to knowledge and understanding and how literature opens the door to better understanding the Bible. If you are a lover or teacher of literature and a believer, I highly recommend this book.
I received an ARC from NetGalley.
I received an ARC from NetGalley.
December 9, 2023
As someone who teaches Literature at a small Christian College, I found this book extremely appealing and so much so that I might use it in my course "Literature and the Life of Faith." Somewhere around the middle of the book she began sharing valuable reflections on being a Christian and a life long reader. Her ruminations fit perfectly into this particular course.
If you are a Christian believer and a serious reader, I highly recommend this book.
If you are a Christian believer and a serious reader, I highly recommend this book.
December 19, 2023
Really enjoyed this meditation on literature and spiritual development
March 9, 2024
I thought Reading for the Love of God would be the perfect book for me, channeling my reading choices in a way that points to God and shining a light on the spiritual connection of God and a reader. It did both of those things, but I have to admit that, as a whole, it was not the right book for me. Some of this well organized book was appropriate for the average reader, but much of it was clearly written by a professor with a strong background in both literature and theology. Perhaps it would be more appropriate for study in a college level course. Here is an example from the text that demonstrates the background knowledge needed to fully benefit from this book: “In Christian tradition, the anagogic sense refers to a text’s echo or reflection of the divine. Where do we see God here? Or we might equate the anagogical with the eschatological: Knowing that all will end in our death and Christ’s second coming, what matters in what we have read? It’s the cultivation of a sight that points our eyes ever upward toward heaven.”
On the other hand, Hooten presents a lot of interesting ideas about reading. She is quite knowledgeable and gathers information from and about many authors. The footnotes cover about twenty percent of the book. She extols the virtues of reading and rereading the classics, and she asserts that learning how to read various genres helps us learn to read Scripture. If we read other books than the Bible, even secular books, through the lens of Scripture, God can teach us. Even books that some Christians avoid reading (e.g. Harry Potter) can lead to examination and discussions of evil versus good, etc. We should both enjoy and use literature, but should not put the message above the story itself. She points out that there are many current and historical opinions about how to best read the Bible addressing issues such as meditation, interpretation, the role of allegory, the depths of word meanings, and symbolism.
The author carefully places essays in the book expounding on what we can learn from examining the writing and reading of St. Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy L. Sayers. After her Conclusion and Acknowledgments, she guides the reader through a practice session of analysis of Flannery O’Connor’s short story “The River.” O’Connor is a much referenced author in this book so this discussion seems quite appropriate. A section of Frequently Asked Questions is very practical and useful. It is followed by “Reading Lists of Great Books” which is grouped by ages. The next list is “Great Books: The Living Tradition” which contains classics sorted by time periods and followed by a list entitled “Writers Whose Works Touch the Sacred and the Profane.” I’m not sure what her criteria are for this list, but it includes authors such as Wendell Berry, Frederick Buechner, Willa Cather, G. K. Chesterton, and Dorothy Sayers.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
On the other hand, Hooten presents a lot of interesting ideas about reading. She is quite knowledgeable and gathers information from and about many authors. The footnotes cover about twenty percent of the book. She extols the virtues of reading and rereading the classics, and she asserts that learning how to read various genres helps us learn to read Scripture. If we read other books than the Bible, even secular books, through the lens of Scripture, God can teach us. Even books that some Christians avoid reading (e.g. Harry Potter) can lead to examination and discussions of evil versus good, etc. We should both enjoy and use literature, but should not put the message above the story itself. She points out that there are many current and historical opinions about how to best read the Bible addressing issues such as meditation, interpretation, the role of allegory, the depths of word meanings, and symbolism.
The author carefully places essays in the book expounding on what we can learn from examining the writing and reading of St. Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy L. Sayers. After her Conclusion and Acknowledgments, she guides the reader through a practice session of analysis of Flannery O’Connor’s short story “The River.” O’Connor is a much referenced author in this book so this discussion seems quite appropriate. A section of Frequently Asked Questions is very practical and useful. It is followed by “Reading Lists of Great Books” which is grouped by ages. The next list is “Great Books: The Living Tradition” which contains classics sorted by time periods and followed by a list entitled “Writers Whose Works Touch the Sacred and the Profane.” I’m not sure what her criteria are for this list, but it includes authors such as Wendell Berry, Frederick Buechner, Willa Cather, G. K. Chesterton, and Dorothy Sayers.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
December 16, 2025
I first encountered Jessica Hooten Wilson at the Walker Percy Weekend, many years ago, where she was a guest speaker and taught a brief seminar on one of Percy's novels. I remember her as a good teacher with an obvious love for reading and literature. Reading for the Love of God showcases these same qualities. It is by intention a popularizing work, introducing and summarizing the important authors of the past who have written on reading. If you’ve read much CS Lewis, then you are already familiar with a large portion of the concepts here. And it is probably a good book to give to people who think that reading is a waste of time, or that it is simply a pastime. She makes a strong defense of reading as vital to spiritual formation. My main disappointment was that I was hoping for a fuller, or at least more comprehensive, discussion of the fourfold sense of reading, instead of mainly distilling the similar (though not identical) approaches of Guigo II, Hugh of St. Victor, and Dorothy Sayers.
October 20, 2025
When I first saw this book I knew I would love it. Then I read it and felt a little let down. Then I went back through it to gather all my thoughts and realized that it wasn’t so much that I didn’t LIKE the book, but more that it wasn’t what I had hoped it would be.
My hope was it would be one I could recommend to anyone interested in becoming a reader. I’ve been searching for a while for the perfect “turn you into a reader” book - and unfortunately, this one is not that. Cue my disappointment.
But after looking through it again, I realized that although it is not what I was originally hoping for, it is something else that is equally important. This is a book for the people who already consider themselves readers but whose reading has not been actively shaping their soul. This book will show you how to move from reading simply as a pastime, to reading as a spiritual practice that will mold and shape your soul through exposure to the good, the true, and the beautiful. Cue my being far-less disappointed!
So, if you already consider yourself a reader but know that there is more you could be getting out of your reading life, this needs to be the next book you pick up! I promise there is no greater task you could set yourself to and Jessica is a wonderful person to guide you along the way.
Favorite Quote: “We read because without books our world shrinks, our empathy thins, and our liberty wanes.”
My hope was it would be one I could recommend to anyone interested in becoming a reader. I’ve been searching for a while for the perfect “turn you into a reader” book - and unfortunately, this one is not that. Cue my disappointment.
But after looking through it again, I realized that although it is not what I was originally hoping for, it is something else that is equally important. This is a book for the people who already consider themselves readers but whose reading has not been actively shaping their soul. This book will show you how to move from reading simply as a pastime, to reading as a spiritual practice that will mold and shape your soul through exposure to the good, the true, and the beautiful. Cue my being far-less disappointed!
So, if you already consider yourself a reader but know that there is more you could be getting out of your reading life, this needs to be the next book you pick up! I promise there is no greater task you could set yourself to and Jessica is a wonderful person to guide you along the way.
Favorite Quote: “We read because without books our world shrinks, our empathy thins, and our liberty wanes.”
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