When Julianna Glasse's now ex-husband discovered her beloved books and accused her of heresy, neither of them imagined that one day she'd adapt his scornful declaration of "this is what happens when you read!" for both her memoir's title and the name of her global nonprofit organization that promotes "the liberation of women through education and literature."
This Is What Happens When Women Read details Glasse's challenging path from a childhood based in evangelical Christianity, through a marriage of "dutiful submission," and into a role as the leader of a global foundation committed to helping women escape oppression. As a wife, she was half of a well-known power couple, a popular Christian-pop singer married to a major-league baseball player. She prayed to save her marriage but simultaneously realized that as she "spread the Word," she was discouraging the women she wanted to help liberate. Her husband's scorn for her books was the catalyst for action. After a vitriolic divorce, she descended into self-loathing and began drinking alcohol, but eventually she immersed herself "in books instead of booze."
Glasse describes her quest to be her "own guiding light" and cites the many works she absorbed, including Dante's Inferno, the Bhagavad Gita, Clarissa Pinkola Estés's Women Who Run with the Wolves, and Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me. She embraced new experiences, achieved spiritual and sexual autonomy, earned a degree from the University of Oxford, and parented her three children. As CEO of her foundation, Glasse presents her memoir, This Is What Happens When Women Read, as an inspiring reminder of her belief that "we read to free ourselves." --Cheryl McKeon, Book House, Albany, N.Y.