Category: Book Reviews
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A Review: Agency: Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants
As I mentioned recently, I’ve been excited about the Maxwell Institute’s “Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants” series. So far, I’ve read four books out of seven, and the entry by Terryl L. Givens on Agency has been my favorite. It’s a beautiful blend of theological and devotional reflection that leans heavier into the comparative…
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A Review: Redeeming the Dead: Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants
The BYU Maxwell Institute has followed up their previous series of Brief Theological Introductions to the Book of Mormon with a similar series focused on Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants. I’ve been excited about them since I heard about them a couple years ago at a Global Mormon Studies conference, so I was very…
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Wrestling with the Restoration: a Review
I highly recommend Wrestling with the Restoration: Why This Church Matters, by Steven C. Harper, for any member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is, at its heart, apologetics done well. In other words, it is a response to critics of the Church on a series of historic and praxis concerns.…
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Book review — “The Book of Mormon for the Least of These: Helaman-Moroni”
“The lessons we learn from scripture depend on the questions we ask… The Book of Mormon…warrants the most challenging questions we can throw at it. This book attempts to ask those difficult questions.” So opens this third and final volume of The Book of Mormon for the Least of These, focusing on the books of…
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A Review: Come Up Hither to Zion: William Marks and the Mormon Concept of Gathering
Come Up Hither to Zion: William Marks and the Mormon Concept of Gathering by Cheryl L. Bruno and John S. Dinger is an enlightening biography that brings attention to a significant yet often overlooked figure in the early Latter Day Saint movement.
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Saints, Volume 4: A Review
The fourth and final volume of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days was published today. This newest book, Sounded in Every Ear, tells the story of the Latter-day Saints from 1955 to 2020, bringing the history up nearly to the present day. It discusses an era in which…
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A Review Joseph Fielding Smith: A Mormon Theologian
I remember a conversation with an institute teacher that I was particularly close to while I was attending college. I was in his office and noticed a framed sketch that included important intellectuals and writers in Latter-day Saint history. While I liked most of them, I pointed out that I didn’t care for Joseph Fielding…
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This Abominable Slavery: A Review
This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah by W. Paul Reeve, Christopher B. Rich Jr., and LaJean Purcell Carruth is a fascinating and detailed glimpse into the debates about slavery and race in Utah Territory in the 1850s. Incorporating never-before transcribed accounts of the 1852 legislative session that…
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Open Canon: Scriptures of the Latter Day Saint Tradition, a Review
Open Canon: Scriptures of the Latter Day Saint Tradition, edited by Christine Elyse Blythe, Christopher James Blythe, and Jay Burton is a book that I loved reading. It is an anthology of essays focusing on the documents created and used as scripture in the broader tradition of religions that trace their roots to the early…
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Sonia Johnson: A Mormon Feminist, a Review
Sonia Johnson: A Mormon Feminist by Christine Talbot is a provocative and insightful entry in University of Illinois Press’s Introductions to Mormon Thought series.
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Review: Bruce R. McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist, 1915–1985
Bruce R. McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist, 1915–1985 by Devery S. Anderson is the latest entry in Signature Books’ Brief Mormon Lives project. As has been the case with other books in the series, this one is a short biography of an individual of note in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is…
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A Review: Unique But Not Different
Unique But Not Different: Latter-day Saints in Japan by Shinji Takagi, Conan Grames, and Meagan Rainock is a fascinating glimpse into the world of Japanese Latter-day Saints. The book is based on a comprehensive survey data, which it explores to examine the diverse social, political, and ideological backgrounds of Japanese Latter-day Saints. Over the course…
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A Review: Commentary on the Community of Christ Doctrine & Covenants, Volume 1
I’ve been hunting down resources to use in studying the Doctrine and Covenants, and one of the books I wanted to highlight in that regard is the Commentary on the Community of Christ Doctrine & Covenants Volume 1: The Joseph Smith Jr. Era, by Dale E. Luffman. It is a fascinating glimpse into both the…
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A Review: Second Class Saints
The priesthood and temple ban against individuals with Black African ancestry is a topic that is both fraught and crucial in understanding the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Matthew Harris’s recently-published Second Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality provides one of the most in-depth looks at…
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Joseph Smith’s Uncanonized Revelations, a Review
Joseph Smith’s Uncanonized Revelations, edited by Stephen O. Smoot and Brian C. Passantino, is a new collection of revelations by or attributed to Joseph Smith. It builds upon the research and publication of documents by the Joseph Smith Papers Project, drawing together the relevant documents into one easily accessible place and providing context for each.…
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A Review: The Last Called Mormon Colonization
Growing up in Utah, I heard many pioneer stories about my ancestors and their colleagues who traveled west to settle the Intermountain West region. I found, however, that many of the stories focused on the journey itself rather than the years that followed as they established settlements and survived in an arid region. The latter…
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A Review: Buffalo Bill and the Mormons
Buffalo Bill and the Mormons by Brent M. Rogers is a fun and interesting book about the intersections of “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s life with the Latter-day Saints. The basic idea is that the American superstar, soldier, bison hunter, and showman launched his acting career at a time when anti-Mormon propaganda had become a profitable and…
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Temples in the Tops of the Mountains
Temples in the Tops of the Mountains: Sacred Houses of the Lord in Utah by Richard O. Cowan and Clinton D. Christensen (BYU RSC and Deseret Book Company, 2023) helped me solve a long-time mystery about my life. You see, when I was six years old, I went to the Vernal, Utah Temple open house.…
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The Heart of the Matter: A Review
The Heart of the Matter, by President Russell M. Nelson, is a book to live by. It serves as a collection and presentation of his core messages as president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and provides guidance for both belief and living as a member of that church.
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Sins of Christendom: A Review
Anti-Mormon literature is always a touchy subject, but Sins of Christendom: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Evangelicalism by Nathaniel Wiewora handles it deftly, putting it in a broader context of change and debate within Evangelical Christianity.
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American Zion: A Review
If I were to ever write a single-volume history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I hope that it would turn out like Benjamin E. Park’s American Zion: A New History of Mormonism (Liveright, 2024). It is a very nuanced, insightful, and well-written take on Latter-day Saint history in the United States.…
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The Testimony of Two Nations: A Review
The Testimony of Two Nations: How the Book of Mormon Reads, and Rereads, the Bible by Michael Austin (University of Illinois Press, 2024) is a delightful and insightful venture into the ways in which the Book of Mormon interacts with the Bible.
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No Division Among You: A Review
No Division Among You: Creating Unity in a Diverse Church, ed. Richard Eyre (Deseret Book, 2023) is a beautiful book in its intentions and efforts. The book is a collection of 14 essays that discuss ways to view the need for unity while embracing diversity. Each essay is by a different author, bringing in diverse…
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Latter-day Saint Book Review: A Life of Jesus, by Shusaku Endo
A Life of Jesus is an introduction to the life of Christ by renowned Catholic Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo, the author of Silence, a book set during the early persecutions of Christians in Japan. Much of Endo’s work revolves around the tensions of being a Catholic in a very non-Christian country, and this book was written…
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A Word in Season: Isaiah’s Reception in the Book of Mormon (A Review)
A Word in Season: Isaiah’s Reception in the Book of Mormon by Joseph M. Spencer (University of Illinois Press, 11/21/2023) is a scholarly exploration into the interplay between the biblical prophet Isaiah and the narrative fabric of the Book of Mormon
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Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement – A Review
Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement is a fascinating journey through the scriptures and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
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Chad’s Top 10 Book List from 2023
In case it’s of use to anyone, I’ve prepared a list of my top 10 books that I’ve read this last year. (That can include books that were not published within the last year, though the majority of them were published in 2023 or 2022):
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Stay Thou Nearby: A Review
The 1852–1978 priesthood and temple ban on Blacks in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a bitter pill to swallow, especially for those affected most directly by it. I have been grateful, however, for efforts in the Church to address the issue more openly in recent years, including several publications from Deseret…
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Lowell L. Bennion: A Mormon Educator, a Review
I have to say that I’m a fan of the trend towards short, accessible biographies of notable figures in Latter-day Saint history. Between University of Illinois Press’s “Introductions to Mormon Thought” series and Signature Books’s “Brief Biography,” there is a lot of excellent work being published. One of the most recent, Lowell L. Bennion: A…
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Diné dóó Gáamalii: Navajo Latter-day Saint Experiences in the Twentieth Century: A Review
Alicia Harris—an Assistant Professor of Native American Art History at the University of Oklahoma—wrote that “If the LDS Church really can work for all peoples, we need to more attentively listen, hear, and be represented by a much greater variety of voices. We must more actively prepare a place for dual identities to be touched…