This is an excellent book quite suited to a serious reader and devotee of the subject. It is refreshing to see such a seminal book published in a market where the breezy and superficial so often garners attention. The author has worked with the leading authorities and resources on the subject, and articulated them in a very comprehensible and coherent manner. Nothing less than a must read for serious students of lectio divina.Karl A. Schultz, Author of How to Pray with the Bible Duncan Robertson makes a compelling argument for the re-examination of early monastic reading practices and medieval theory, engaging with modern research on literacy, memory, reception, and cognition. With impressive erudition and remarkable lucidity, he challenges modern literary theorists to explore the implications of spiritual reading for the interpretive process. This study will be welcomed not only by specialists of medieval spirituality and medieval literature, but also by scholars investigating the history of reading in the West.Catherine M. Jones, Professor of French and Provençal, Graduate Coordinator, Romance Languages, University of Georgia
