This week Kara Martin joins Sydneyanglicans.net as our resident book reviewer and the author of a new blog examining popular writing from a Christian point of view.

Ever since I was a little girl I have been fascinated by words and writing. Apparently I was beginning to read newspaper headlines when I was three; but that was probably just to get the attention of my very busy professional father.

My most prized possession as a six-year-old was a portable typewriter, on which I started several novels. My favourite early stories were about the adventures of an insect called Beetle Bug. It will therefore come as no surprise that Beatrix Potter was an early influence.

I read Enid Blyton, W.E. Johns, C.S. Lewis, J.R. Tolkien and Madeleine L'Engle. I loved fantasy, science fiction, and adventure stories.

I also loved non-fiction; even buying second-hand text books to read.

Words, patterns, ideas, thinking, logic, connections, imagination, vision, dreaming.

I discovered faith through books. When I was seven, my Scripture teacher read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to us in class. I was gripped by the drama, and never wanted the lesson to end. I read A Wrinkle in Time by L'Engle as an eight-year-old and was entranced by her themes of love and sacrifice and redemption.

By the time someone told me the Christ story when I was nine, I recognised Aslan and the L'Engle themes and it all came together. For someone who loves stories, the God of His-Story who chooses the most unlikely contexts, characters and choices for his rescue mission intuitively struck home as truth.

I also recognised this truth as truth everywhere and for all time. I could see God's fingerprints all around me.

I look for his fingerprints in every book I read.

I have continued to devour books all my life. I read a couple a week for pleasure, and several more for my studies.

I also love writing. In writing, combining words, exploring ideas… I feel God's pleasure, much as Eric Lidell did when running.

So, to write a blog about books and reading feels like fulfilment of a desire, a dream and my destiny (and I am using Caroline J. Simon's definition of destiny as "a person's true story led by love and imagination and the gift of God's grace").

I invite you to dialogue with me about the possibilities of words, reading, ideas; what fingerprints we can trace of God's ongoing creative and sustaining work… and all the spaces in between.

I will be looking mostly at secular books, but also the popular Christian titles, informed by faith, God's story and shared wisdom. Please join the conversation…

Kara Martin is a writer and the resident book reviewer for the national radio program Open House