Book Girl: A Journey through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life by Sarah Clarkson

About the book:

(from the publisher) When you hear a riveting story, does it thrill your heart and stir your soul? Do you hunger for truth and goodness? Do you secretly relate to Belle’s delight in the library in Beauty and the Beast?

If so, you may be on your way to being a book girl.

Books were always Sarah Clarkson’s delight. Raised in the company of the lively Anne of Green Gables, the brave Pevensie children of Narnia, and the wise Austen heroines, she discovered reading early on as a daily gift, a way of encountering the world in all its wonder. But what she came to realize as an adult was just how powerfully books had shaped her as a woman to live a story within that world, to be a lifelong learner, to grasp hope in struggle, and to create and act with courage.

She’s convinced that books can do the same for you.

Join Sarah in exploring the reading life as a gift and an adventure, one meant to enrich, broaden, and delight you in each season of your life as a woman. In Book Girl, you’ll discover:

• how reading can strengthen your spiritual life and deepen your faith,
• why a journey through classic literature might be just what you need (and where to begin),
• how stories form your sense of identity,
• how Sarah’s parents raised her to be a reader—and what you can do to cultivate a love of reading in the growing readers around you, and
• 20+ annotated book lists, including some old favorites and many new discoveries.

Whether you’ve long considered yourself a reader or have dreams of becoming one, Book Girl will draw you into the life-giving journey of becoming a woman who reads and lives well.

Genre: Non-fiction/Christian Life

About the author:

Sarah Clarkson loves good books, beauty, and imagination, and thinks everyone else should too. She explores the intersection of literature, faith, and wonder at SarahClarkson.com and is at very slow work on a novel. She currently hails from Oxford, where she keeps good company with the ghosts of Tolkien and Lewis and also studies theology.

Connect with the author: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

My take:

Now here’s a book for readers who are serious about reading. Book Girl is both a companion and continuing resource for, well, book girls. In other words, for book lovers and lovers of book lists (of which I am both) — as well as those who aspire to be either.

The depth and breadth of Book Girl is impressive, to say the least, and — for me, anyway — extremely resonant. Which is to say that any reasonably seasoned reader can compile a book list, but does it contain books I actually want to read? This one does.

Reading Book Girl, I couldn’t help but compare it to a favorite podcast of mine, What Should I Read Next? with Anne Bogel (aka, Modern Mrs. Darcy). In each podcast episode, Anne does a little literary matchmaking by recommending a few books to suit her guest’s stated references. Book Girl is like that, only in book form. Which also makes it extremely portable and accessible too.

I could spend many happy hours poring over the pages and pages of book lists captured under such headings as:

• “What to Do with the Time We’ve Been Given”: Books That Helped Me Navigate Contemporary Culture
• The Nightstand List: Classics You Should Eventually Read
• “What? You too?”: The Firsthand Accounts That Remind Me I’m Not Alone
• Beauty Speaks Truth: Books about the Arts

Each list offers bountiful suggestions for edifying reading material. I’m happy to keep Book Girl on my shelf and know I’ll be referring to it again and again as I compile my own book lists.

Oh, and P.S. — with the holidays winking at us from around the corner, I have to point out that Book Girl would make an ideal gift for just about any female bibliophile on your list.

Thanks to Tyndale Momentum for providing me this book free of charge. All opinions are mine.

Buy it here. 

After words:

What’s on your reading list this fall?