Category: Features

Sunday School lessons – Book Reviews – Interviews

12 Questions for the LDS Newsroom, Part One

by Dave Banack • October 30, 2008 • 20 Comments

Representatives from LDS Public Affairs who manage and direct the Newsroom site at LDS.org agreed to respond to a dozen questions submitted by the T&S permabloggers. We are pleased to post the first six questions and answers below, with the second set of six to follow shortly. We appreciate the time and effort that went into preparing these detailed responses. They should help make the Newsroom an even more useful resource for LDS readers.

General Conference Open Thread

by Marc Bohn • October 5, 2008 • 25 Comments

It appears as though we’ve neglected an old institution here at Times & Seasons, the General Conference Open Thread. All apologies.

“Mormonism”: A Perfect Storm

by Ben Huff • September 30, 2008 • 13 Comments

Library Journal this month ran an interesting article offering a big-picture perspective on the world of LDS and LDS-related publishing, highlighting close to 40 books on doctrine, history, sociology, comparative theology and devotional topics, as well as periodicals, video, and internet resources. The article’s aim is to help librarians choose recent, reliable books about Mormonism, whether they work in a public or small academic library.

Family Home Evening Ideas

by Julie M. Smith • September 27, 2008 • 25 Comments

After almost three years, we’ve just about made it all the way through the Bible in felt. These have been great FHEs for us. Now I need something new.

Brigham Daniels on deck

by Frank McIntyre • September 8, 2008 • 8 Comments

We’d like to extend many thanks to Kent Larsen for a variety of interesting and thoughtful posts. We also would like to welcome our newest guest, Brigham Daniels. Brigham works as a law professor at the University of Houston Law Center, where he teaches environmental law. He has been involved with LDS community, environmental law and policy, and politics for many years. So not surprisingly, Brigham intends to use his guest blogging stint to talk about Mormonism and the environment. We look forward to his posts. Welcome to the party, Brigham!

Sunday School Redux

by Frank McIntyre • August 25, 2008 • 4 Comments

Three excellent quotes from this week’s Sunday School lesson: Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can.

What We Didn’t Discuss

by Kylie Turley • August 20, 2008 • 50 Comments

The gospel doctrine lesson on Alma 43-52 proposed four principles of war as waged by the righteous:

Meet Your Inner Fish

by Dave Banack • July 31, 2008 • 9 Comments

I recently read Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion Year History of the Human Body (Pantheon Books, 2008) by Neil Shubin, a paleotologist and professor of anatomy at the University of Chicago. By coincidence, Jared at LDS Science Review had posted the same book in his “Currently Reading” list. Here is our conversation about this interesting book.

Notes from all over.

by Blog Administration • July 25, 2008 • 4 Comments

Book Review: The Host

by Dave Banack • July 20, 2008 • 8 Comments

by Stephenie Meyers (Little, Brown, 2008). 617 pp. WARNING: major spoilers Stephenie Meyerâ€™s foray into science fiction is a well-deserved best seller, and a great piece of Mormon literature. The romantic interaction between Bella and Edward and Jacobâ€”wait, I mean between Jared and Melanie/Wanderer and Ianâ€”uh, hold on a second…

Sunday School Inequality

by Frank McIntyre • June 17, 2008 • 50 Comments

This week I went to an excellent lecture on inequality. Clayne Pope, retiring economist, pointed out that while income inequality in the U.S. has been pretty close to the same for the last 200 years, leisure-time is now concentrated more heavily among the poor, while education inequality and lifespan inequality have both dropped like a rock. These are great things, wonderful even. Unfortunately, I fear that improvement in Sunday School comment inequality may well be stagnant.

MWS: Brandon Sanderson

by Kaimi Wenger • June 11, 2007 • 12 Comments

Brandon Sanderson is the Campbell-nominated author (twice-nominated now) of the fantasy novels Elantris and Mistborn: The Final Empire. His novel Well of Ascension, second in the Mistborn trilogy, will be published in a few months. Other projects (including the playfully titled Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians) are on the horizon. Brandon also recently released another full novel in draft form, Warbreaker, which is available for free at his website. He blogs at BrandonSanderson.com and posts frequently on the message board at The Official Time-Waster’s Guide. Brandon graciously agreed to be interviewed, as part of our ongoing Mormon Writers Symposium. [Interview questions by Kaimi Wenger] 1. You’ve established a reputation as a writer of genre fiction (fantasy). Many LDS writers (Orson Scott Card; Glen Larson) have used the genre of speculative fiction, broadly speaking. Is there something uniquely LDS about speculative fiction (or perhaps something uniquely speculative about the LDS mindset)?

MWS: Shannon Hale

by Russell Arben Fox • May 29, 2007 • 10 Comments

Shannon Hale is a Newbery Honor-winning, New York Times bestseller-listed author of youth and fantasy fiction, most particularly Goose Girl and Princess Academy. This week sees the release of her latest novel Austenland, her first adult fiction novel. She is a returned missionary and lives in Salt Lake City with her husband and two under-three-years-old children.

MWS: Doug Thayer

by Russell Arben Fox • May 23, 2007 • 15 Comments

Douglas Thayer is one of the pioneers of what Eugene England called “faithful realism” in his definitive study of Mormon literature. Besides having taught literally thousands of Mormon writers during his fifty years as a professor of English at Brigham Young University, his short story collections Under the Cottonwoods and Mr. Wahlquist in Yellowstone have become a template for those writing about the interior life of Mormons today. He has also published the novels Summer Fire and The Conversion of Jeff Williams.

Sunday School Lesson materials

by Jim F. • January 4, 2007 • 8 Comments

Nothing exciting here, just an administrative note: I’ve been posting materials for studying the Sunday School lesson materials on Times and Seasons for a while. However,