The incredible, inspiring true story of one woman's escape from religious indoctrination, through the power of books, publishing in our National Year of Reading
On the surface, Julianna Glasse had it all: her husband was a huge sports star, she had three beautiful children and a career as a Christian pop singer. But in reality, Julianna's life was far from perfect. It was only when she began to read, and read widely, that she started to question the fundamentalist Christian community that she had spent her life inside. From Simone de Beauvoir to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf to the Persian poet Rumi, she began to realise how shackled her mind had been. And when her husband tried to stop her from reading, it gave her every reason not to stop.
In this one-of-a-kind memoir, Julianna tells the story of how books helped reclaim her power and her voice, and her mission to free women across the world from the strictures of religion, including founding a scholarship for women who have overcome significant challenges to accessing education at the University of Oxford's Said Business School.
When women read they reclaim their autonomy. They honour their natural curiosity. And they question the societal structures that stop them fulfilling their potential. This is what happens when women read.