Reading for the Love of God, Jessica Hooten Wilson
Reading for the Love of God, Jessica Hooten Wilson
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Reading for the Love of God
How to Read as a Spiritual Practice

Author: Jessica Hooten Wilson

Narrator: Lisa Larsen

Unabridged: 6 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/28/2023

Synopsis

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.

About Jessica Hooten Wilson

Jessica Hooten Wilson is inaugural visiting scholar 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 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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Scott on April 22, 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 readin......more

Goodreads review by Anita on September 28, 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......more

Goodreads review by Conrade on 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......more

Goodreads review by Leah on 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......more

Goodreads review by Justin on 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.......more

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