Skip to main content

This is What Happens When Women Read

This is What Happens When Women Read cover

This is What Happens When Women Read

Quantity
Pre-order. Available 03 Nov 2026
$33.29 RRP $36.99 Website price saving $3.70 (10%)

Payment for this pre-order will be taken when the item becomes available

Description

The incredible story of how forbidden books sparked a woman's journey from Christian stardom to self-liberation.

'Julianna Glasse blazes a trail for every woman who has ever felt oppressed' CHELSEA HANDLER
'This is a story of change, inspiration, transformation and tenacity . . . Incredible' JONATHAN VAN NESS

At the peak of her fame, Julianna Glasse was a pop star and exemplary wife and mother, one half of a Christian power couple. She and her husband, a Major League Baseball star, led Bible studies for his team and their wives. But when her love of reading drew her to books like Plato's Republic, de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and poems by Dickinson, Rumi and Rilke, something inside her shifted.

Slowly Julianna began to question things she had previously accepted as truth – something she knew her strict church community would forbid. She hid her books under the bed, in the linen closet, wherever they would not be found. But when her husband discovered them, his furious words would serve as her liberation: 'This is what happens when women read!'

In this riveting memoir, Julianna writes of her very public and painful split from both the church and her husband – the self-hatred, depression, shame and suicidal impulses that almost destroyed her; the books she read that inspired her to embrace life as an autonomous, independent woman and pursue her education at Oxford; and, finally, her path to self-discovery and purpose.

With a suggested reading list at the back of the book, This is What Happens When Women Read is at once a dramatic personal story, a conversation-starter about women's liberation, and an inspiring tribute to the power of books.

Product details

Published 03 Nov 2026
Format Paperback
Edition 1st
Pages 304
ISBN 9781526697769
Imprint Bloomsbury Circus
Dimensions 234 x 153 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Julianna Glasse

Julianna Glasse is a mother, an inspirational spea…

Related Titles

Get 30% off in the May sale - for one week only

Environment: Staging