Episode 41: Jessica Hooten Wilson & Karen Swallow Prior

The Englewood Review of Books Podcast

This episode is all about celebrating and reading great literary works. Jen is joined by first-time guest Jessica Hooten Wilson, as well as repeat guest Karen Swallow Prior, who are both outstanding guides through the world of classic literature. They discuss the value of great literature, the historical difference between Catholic and Protestant novelists, and of course what they are currently reading.
Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Louise Cowan Scholar in Residence at the University of Dallas. She is the author of numerous books, including The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints, published in 2022 by Brazos Press. Her book, Giving the Devil his Due: Flannery O’Connor and The Brothers Karamazov, received a 2018 Christianity Today Book of the Year Award in the Culture & the Arts.

Karen Swallow Prior is Research Professor of English and Christianity and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. She’s the author, most recently, of On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books and hosts the recently launched podcast Jane and Jesus. She lives in rural Virginia with her husband and sundry dogs, horses, and chickens.

Books & Writing Mentioned in this Episode:
If you’d like to order any of the following books, we encourage you to do so from Hearts and Minds Books(An independent bookstore in Dallastown, PA, run by Byron and Beth Borger)

• Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints by Jessica Hooten Wilson
• Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor and Fyodor Dostoyevsky by Jessica Hooten Wilson
• On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books by Karen Swallow Prior
• The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture by Jean Leclercq
• A Good Man is Hard to Find And Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor
• Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
• Dante, Bunyan and the Case for a Protestant Aesthetics (Article in Journal of Systematic Theology) by William Dyrness
• The Novel: A Biography by Michael Schmidt
• There There by Tommy Orange
• Green Ember Series by S. D. Smith
• The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
• Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri Translated by Mary Jo Bang
• The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey
• Read and Reflect with the Classics Series by Karen Swallow Prior