In her book on Marian devotion in medieval England, The Virgin Mary's Book at the Annunciation, Laura Saetveit Miles explores the importance of Mary's reading-practice in connection to different images and written descriptions of the Annunciation. According to Miles, the reading Virgin provided a model for Christians to imitate in order to spiritually conceive Christ in their own life. Furthermore, Mary's book had both a theological and a practical function in legitimizing women's literacy and their theological authority.

In chapter 1, Miles introduces the concept of imitatio Marie while stressing that this practice was not confined to women. On the contrary, both women and men could use the reading Virgin as an interpretative model through which the Word of God could become part of their own lives. In addition, Mary's motherhood and female body could provide a source of authority for medieval holy women, a concept that Miles further discusses throughout the book and especially in chapter 4.

After the introductory description of imitatio Marie in chapter 1, chapter 2 focuses on the metaphor of the reading Virgin in connection to eleventh- and twelfth-century anchoresses. Using texts written by male authors and directed to (enclosed) religious women as a starting point, Miles argues that the image of Mary reading in her room at the time of the Annunciation could function as a model of devotional life for the anchoresses to imitate. The enclosure of both Mary's chamber and her womb echoed the confined cells of the anchoresses. For this reason, the latter could come closer to God through the enclosure they shared with Mary, at the same time as the Virgin's active role in the Annunciation validated the anchoresses’ praying, reading, and singing in solitude. Miles interprets the connection between Mary's reading in her chamber and the life of anchoresses as a shift in focus from male clerics to religious women. In other words, while descriptions of the reading Virgin had previously been directed towards a male audience, during the twelfth century these descriptions became a way of juxtaposing Mary and the anchoresses through shared enclosure, chastity, and prayer patterns.

While chapter 2 focuses primarily on those texts that depict the Virgin reading the Psalter, chapter 3 analyzes those traditions that described Mary as reading Isaiah and his foretelling of the Annunciation. As Mary conceives Christ while reading a prophecy about his coming into the world, so too can the readers bring Christ into their own lives through reading and meditation. According to Miles, the image of Mary as both reader and interpreter of Scriptures was so powerful that some authors decided not to include it in their texts and translations. In other words, while the reading Virgin could have an empowering function for (female) readers, descriptions of Mary sitting silently without a book in her hands would rather shift the focus from personal interpretation and meditation to vocal prayer, possibly represented by Gabriel.

If the reading Virgin played an important part in inspiring readers of both sexes, she also had a pivotal role in forming the self-understanding of medieval female mystics. Therefore, chapter 4 examines different accounts of the Annunciation as described in the writings of Elizabeth of Hungary, Birgitta of Sweden, Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe. Miles argues that these female visionaries used Mary's response to the words of Gabriel as a framework to interpret their own identities as mystics and the way in which they receive Christ in their hearts and souls. In other words, just as the Word becomes incarnated, so does Christ enter the world through revelations recorded in writing, an act that endorses women's literacy and theological authority.

After considering the Annunciation in relation to female visionaries, in chapter 5 Miles turns to a number of sources that show how, after the eleventh century, Mary returns to be a model of devotional practice and meditation for both men and women, as she had been during the ninth and the tenth centuries. Thereafter, chapter 6 focuses on the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham and on a more concrete, physical experience of the Annunciation scene. Finally, in the coda, Miles gives a brief account of how the role of Mary changed in connection with the Reformation, becoming more passive than it had been in the past.

Miles's book is an interesting, thought-provoking, and informative investigation that relies on a variety of sources in order to shed light on the role of the book of Mary in medieval England. Thanks to the high amount of quotations from sources written in both Latin and Middle English and to the many images in the book, Miles gives the reader an opportunity to interact with the material and thus to follow her arguments more easily. However, while the Latin quotations are consistently followed by an English translation, the ones in Middle English are not. For the non-native speaker of English, reading long excerpts without a translation becomes a daunting project that takes much needed focus away from the main thesis and arguments on the book. On the other hand, if the reader decides not to read the quotations, Miles's reasoning and conclusions become more difficult to fully understand. However, apart from these difficulties related to the lack of translations, the book still remains a valuable reading for those who are interested in the development of Marian devotion and female mysticism in both medieval England and the European mainland.