It’s April! The official Association for Mormon Letters Award finalists were recently announced, and soon we will know the winners! Over the next couple of months, the MHA, JWHA, and other associations that present Mormon literature awards will also announce their winners for 2022. While I have no prizes, trophies, or certificates to give, I am awarding a few final shout-outs and much-deserved attention to my favorite books from 2022 by academic publishers who specialize in Mormon books.
SIGNATURE BOOKS
Signature Books was very busy in 2022! I won’t review all of their books from last year here, but I will provide a list if you want to check out any of their other 2022 releases, [i] as they were all very good!
In Sacred Loneliness: The Documents – edited by Todd M. Compton
In Sacred Loneliness: The Documents was unquestionably the most significant Mormon Documentary history book released in 2022. Compton’s award-winning, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, a study of the thirty-three women he could prove were married to Smith, was released in 1997. Twenty-five years after its release, it is still one of the most important books that you can read on Joseph Smith’s polygamy. It is THE book to read if you want to learn about the women who married Joseph Smith. No other book or author has come close to doing those women the justice that Todd Compton has.
In 2020 Compton contributed a chapter to Joseph Gesiner’s really cool essay collection, Writing Mormon History: Historians and Their Books[ii]. That project inspired Compton to revisit In Sacred Loneliness and create this book containing the documents that he used to write his first volume. In Sacred Loneliness: The Documents is filled with letters, journal entries, and other personal writings by the women who were convinced that they had to become the wives of Joseph Smith. This is the first time that many of these important documents that give voice to these women have been published. I hate one-liners, but if any book is a “must-read,” it is In Sacred Loneliness: The Documents.
Read Cheryl L. Bruno’s full review here.
Envisioning Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Revelations in Their Early American Contexts, edited by Colby Townsend
In the late 90s and early 2000s, Signature published a series of themed books collecting important essays on various Mormon Studies subjects. Over the last couple of years, they have once again been publishing such volumes. The early 18th Century was a unique and wild time. The 10 essays collected by Townsend discuss gender, race, prophecy, education, scripture, real and narrative time, authority and power, and apocalypticism and “elucidate the uniqueness of Mormon scripture” in the print culture of early America. It is a captivating book.
Read a full review by Cheryl Bruno here.
Martha Hughes Cannon: Suffragist, Senator, Plural Wife, by Constance L. Lieber
Martha Hughes was an amazing woman who accomplished much in her life. The title of this brief biography mentions three pretty involved things that were a part of her life: Suffragist, Senator, (and) Plural Wife. She was also a teacher, a typesetter for the Deseret News and Women’s Exponent, and for a time she was a doctor. This would be an astounding number of accomplishments now. And she did all of these things in the mid to late 1800s when the women’s liberation movement was in its infancy.
Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon: Suffragist, Senator, Plural Wife, by Constance L. Lieber is another excellent volume in Signature Book’s “Brief Mormon Lives series”. This book may be short, but it tells you a lot about this powerful and fascinating woman.
Check out a full review by Julie J. Nichols here.
Wineskin: Freakin’ Jesus in the ‘60s and ‘70s, by Michael Hicks
I had never heard of Michael Hicks until his book, Spencer Kimball’s Record Collection, also published by Signature Books, was released in 2020. That book made me into a Hicks groupie. I have since built up a large collection of Hicks’ books. Wineskin: Freakin’ Jesus in the ‘60s and ‘70s is a wonderful addition to that collection.
Hicks, who is this year’s winner of the AML Lifetime Achievement Award, was a teenager in San Francisco in the late sixties. He experienced the full range of the Hippie movement and as a teen helped to run a Christian coffee shop called Wineskin (hence the name of the book). He joined Mormonism, left Mormonism, and came back to Mormonism. Hicks narrates his intriguing story in a delightful way. To say that I found this dense little book absorbing, captivating, and just plain “cool” (we are talking about the 60’s) is not an overstatement!
Read a full review by Michael Austin here.
Michael Quinn: Mormon Historian by Gary Topping[iii].
This was the second book released in Signature’s “Brief Mormon Lives” series. At 133 pages, you only get the highlights from the life of perhaps the most significant historian to ever write a book on Mormon history. Mike Quinn was an amazing man who was much beloved in the Mormon studies community. He was very gracious to me, and I treasure the time that I was able to spend with him. This brief book provides an excellent summary of his life and work.
Read Cheryl Bruno’s full review here.
Harold B Lee: Life and Thought, by Newell Bringhurst.
Who was the most influential 20th-century Mormon prophet? Was it Joseph F. Smith who ushered the church into the new century, issued the “Second Manifesto,” recorded the “Revelation on the Redemption of the Dead” shortly before his death, and served as church president for 18 years? Was it the immensely popular David O McKay who oversaw the rise of modern Mormonism in the middle of the century and served as church president from 1951 to 1970? Maybe it was Gordon B Hinckley. After all, he kept the church going through most of the 1980s and early 90s when Presidents Kimball and Benson were too ill to be active. Then, as President himself from 1995 to 2008, he used his good nature and media acumen to guide the church out of the 20th Century and into the new millennium.
WHAT if it was none of these three? What if the answer for the most influential twentieth-century Mormon prophet was Harold B. Lee? Yes, Harold B Lee who only served for 18 months from July 1972 to December 1973. Newell Bringhurst, author of Harold B Lee: Life and Thought, the first book in Signature Book’s “Brief Mormon Lives Series,” believes that he has made the case for Lee to be so considered.
Check out a full review of this short but fascinating book here.
THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH PRESS
Due to publication delays on some of their scheduled titles, the University of Utah Press only released three Mormon Studies titles in 2022. All three were AMAZING! I am going to focus on my two favorites[iv].
Fact, Fiction, and Polygamy: A Tale of Utah War Intrigue, 1857–1858—A. G. Browne’s The Ward of the Three Guardians – Edited by William P. MacKinnon, Kenneth L. Alford
Fact, Fiction, and Polygamy: may be the most unusual Mormon studies book produced in 2022. In 1877 The Atlantic published a novella by A. G. Browne titled “The Ward of the Three Guardians.” Browne had been a correspondent in Utah during the Utah War period. During this period Henrietta Polydore was secretly taken out of her Catholic Convent school in England by her Mormon convert mother and spirited away to Utah. Browne became involved with the legal case to have her returned to her father in England. Her mother became a polygamous wife of a Mormon leader and Henrietta just missed the possibility of becoming a polygamous wife herself. Browne used Henrietta’s story to write “The Ward of the Three Guardians.”
William P. MacKinnon, who knows more about the Utah War than anyone living, and Kenneth L. Alford teamed up to present Browne’s lost novella to modern audiences with thorough notes and contextual essays. If you are fascinated by polygamy, by 19th-century perceptions of Mormonism, by old novellas, or just good history, then you will enjoy this book.
Read Kevin Folkman’s excellent review here.
I Spoke to You with Silence: Essays from Queer Mormons of Marginalized Genders – Edited by Kerry Spencer Pray, Jenn Lee Smith
I Spoke to You with Silence is the most touching Mormon-related book that I read in 2022. I would guess that all LGBT Mormons have been oppressed and mistreated. This mistreatment is even more severe when these individuals are also members of marginalized genders. In the past, the stories of LGBT Mormons and their treatment have nearly always been filtered through the voices of homosexual white men. I Spoke to You with Silence is the first book to tell the stories of Queer Mormons of Marginalized Genders in their own voices. It is an important, profound, and difficult book to read. You will need a box of tissues next to you to read these stories, but you will be glad that you read them. Everyone who is Mormon or Mormon adjacent needs to read I Spoke to You With Silence and let it change their lives.
Read Conor Hilton’s review here.
KOFFORD BOOKS
Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration, by Cheryl L. Bruno, Joe Steve Swick III, and Nicholas S. Literski
Method Infinite was the most significant Mormon Studies book to come out in 2022 and easily one of the most important and significant Mormon Studies volumes to be released in the last decade. While on my mission in Oklahoma about thirty years ago I learned that Joseph Smith was involved in Masonry and that Masonry and the LDS temple rites were connected. I wanted to know more than mission rumors and what was handed to me in anti-Mormon pamphlets so I started looking for materials on the subject. I tracked down a copy of Reed Durham’s controversial 1974 MHA address on the subject. I read Mormonism and Masonry by E Cecil McGavin and other books as they were released. So I thought that I had a fairly decent idea about the connections between Mormonism and Masonry. But just live reviewer Kevin Folkman I “was not prepared for was the avalanche of information about the parallels, direct influences, and obvious borrowing of ritual and symbolism that followed” as I read this masterwork by Bruno, Swick, and Literski.
Joseph Smith full on swam in masonry. The young United States of America that Smith was born into was immersed in Masonry and so was Smith. I have read Method Infinite twice now and listened to it once[v] and it will take more before I fully comprehend it. The number of parallels and connections are mind boggling. Swick and Literski are Master Masons and Bruno has studied Masonry and mysticism extensively. All have been or are members of the LDS church. All three are excellent scholars and have researched this subject for decades. The level of information they have included is astonishing. The entire book is excellent, but my favorite chapter was Chapter 4, “From Darkness to Light: The Prophet’s Masonic Initiation.” It focuses on the masonic parallels and connections in Joseph Smith’s “First Vision.” This chapter alone makes the book worth the price that you pay for it. My Gen Z students would use the word amazeballs to describe Method Infinite and they and they would be accurate. If you do not have a copy, I HIGHLY recommend you get a copy and read it
Read an excellent, fair and balanced review by Kevin Folkman here.
The Latter-day Saint Image in the British Mind, by Malcolm Adcock and Fred E. Woods
Converts from Great Britain played an extremely important and vital role in early Restoration history. For much of the 19th century, Britain was the lifeblood of Mormon missionary efforts, with many thousands of converts joining the church and immigrating from Britain to Utah.
In The Latter-Day Saint Image in the British Mind, authors Malcolm Adcock and Fred E. Woods have written a “fast-paced and wide-ranging, packed with fascinating tidbits for all students of Mormon history.” If you want to gain a greater understanding of the importance of Great Britain in Mormon history, this is THE book to read.
Read Conor Hilton’s full review here.
The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints, Revised Edition, by Thomas Wayment.
Originally released by Deseret in 2019, Wayment’s book sold very well. Before it was published, Deseret Book asked for some changes to be made to the text. When it sold out, they did not reprint it despite its popularity. Kofford has released this revised and enhanced edition with additional footnotes and updated material. It is one of the main New Testament editions that I use for my personal study. It is very good and I highly recommend it.
Read Kevin Folkman’s full review here.
A Vision Splendid: The Discourses of David O. McKay, by Anne-Marie Wright Lampropoulos.
David O McKay was the prophet of the church for nearly 20 years, right in the middle of the 20th century. This was a period of fantastic growth for the Church, and for many people, McKay became THE image of what a prophet should look and be like. His background and training were in education and literature. He became well known for his eloquent sermons that drew on a great variety of literary sources. Anne-Marie Wright Lampropoulos, a niece of McKay’s longtime personal secretary Clare Middlemiss, had access to her extensive papers on Mckay. From these, she compiled A Vision Splendid. In this engaging book she “brings to life the nature and style with which David O. McKay taught.” It is a fascinating study of the sermons of this important prophet.
Check out Richard Ji’s full review here.
The 1920 Edition of the Book of Mormon: A Centennial Adventure in Latter-day Saint Book History, by Richard L. Saunders
If there was an award for “Nerdiest SUPER COOL Book of the Year,’ The 1920 Edition of the Book of Mormon would win the award. Richard L Saunders is an AMAZING historian and author. He has a gift for collecting facts and information that many never heard of and presenting them in a very interesting and engaging way.
Many of us still remember the hoopla around the release of the 1980 edition of the Book of Mormon. The production and release of the 1920 edition was just as, if not more significant in LDS history. Saunders painstakingly tells the story. His information about James E Talmage’s work on the project is so assiduous, exacting, and complete, that he probably tells you thigs about Talmage that Talmage did not know himself. If you love history, are a book nerd, are fascinated by the Book of Mormon, or just love a good read, this book is for you.
The 1920 Edition of the Book of Mormon is a stunningly beautiful book. It is Smyth sewn and very handsomely produced. The cover and pages are of high quality. This book is worth buying just so it looks good on your shelf. The interesting and important story contained in its pages is almost a bonus. At 79.95, it’s a bit on the pricey side, but it is worth the investment. This book ought to be in the library of everyone who reads or collects Mormon Studies.
The University of Illinois Press
The University of Illinois Press only released four[vi] books this year but they were all excellent.
Revising Eternity: 27 Latter-day Saint Men Reflect on Modern Relationships, edited by Holly Welker
To say that Revising Eternity had a massive emotional impact on me is an understatement. It both broke my heart and put it back together. When I picked up my copy, I was expecting to read a collection of academic essays on the roles of Mormon men in marriage. I was not prepared for the onslaught of emotional, often heart-wrenching stories of Mormon and post-Mormon men trying to come to grips with their prescribed roles within Mormonism and the lofty, glamourized Mormon ideal, while wrestling with the realities of their lives. As the world progresses through the middle of the third decade of the Twenty-first century, Mormon marriage roles and teachings are still pretty firmly planted in the mid-Twentieth century, Leave it to Beaver, nuclear family image, and this is causing many families to struggle. Revising Eternity: 27 Latter-day Saint Men Reflect on Modern Relationships ought to be required reading for ALL Mormon men, especially those in positions of leadership.
Read full reviews of Revising Eternity by John Engler
by Rachel Helps
and this blog post/introduction by editor Holly Welker.
Mormon Women at the Crossroads: Global Narratives and the Power of Connectedness by Caroline Kline
Reviewer Julie Nichols states, “Between desire for community and resistance to hierarchy, personal revelation and priesthood restrictions, agency and authority, we Mormon women present conundrums worth lifetimes of study.” The complications of studying Mormon women and feminism becomes even more so when it involves women internationally and women of various minorities. In this important study, Caroline Kline tries to examine this very complex issue and give voice to minority Mormon women from around the globe. After examining the book Nichols states:
I believe her conclusions are vitally important not only for scholars who must now expand their sense of the variety of responses Mormon women have to Church teachings and policies but also for missionaries, travelers, investigators—and leaders at all levels in this hierarchical, patriarchal, imperfect, Utah-based church.
This excellent book has been named as a top five finalist for the Association for Mormon Letters “Religious Non-Fiction Award” for 2022. Read this full review by Julie J Nichols here.
Marianne Meets the Mormons: Representations of Mormonism in Nineteenth-Century France by Heather Belnap, Corry Cropper, and Daryl Lee
The premise of Marianne Meets the Mormons is stated by its authors as: “Throughout the nineteenth century, Mormonism was used in France to expose, parallel, and parody contemporary French issues.” Marianne is a fun and unique book to read. It is not about a history of Mormons or Mormons in France, about the perceptions and portrayals of Latter-day Saints by French thinkers from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, and shows how “Latter-day Saints were utilized—in friendly and unfriendly ways—to act as mirrors on then-contemporary French social, political, and sexual norms.”
Read a full review by Sam Mitchell here.
ALL of these publishers had fantastic years in 2022 and 2023 is off to an excellent start. I am looking forward to more excellent Mormon Studies volumes from all of them this year!
**Andrew Hamilton is the Association for Mormon Letter’s Book Review Editor and despite his poor compositional skills demonstrated in this post, attempts to teach English Comp to college students in Idaho.
[i] Other Signature Books Releases included:
- Susa Young Gates: Daughter of Mormonism, by Romney Burke
- The Year They Gave Women the Priesthood and Other Stories, by Michael Fillerupfun and thought-provoking stories by Fillerup. See a review by Julie Nichols here.
- Lighthouse: Jerald & Sandra Tanner, Despised and Beloved Critics of Mormonism, by Ronald V. Huggins. Two of the most controversial critics of Mormonism get a fascinating biography. See full review by Julie Nichols here
- Eight Myths of the Great Apostasy by Gregor McHardy. Okay, I admit, I have not been able to read this one yet. But it sounds very interesting. Mormon ideas on the “Great Apostasy” have been in flux in recent years. This is one of several significant volumes to be related in 2022 that resets and reexamines Mormon belief and doctrine of what “The Great Apostasy” was. Check out this full review by Doug Christensen.
[ii] See a Review of this fabulous book here
[iii] Topping’s book was the first of several books celebrating the life and work of Quinn to be released by Signature Books. In early 2023 they released DNA Mormon: Perspectives on the Legacy of Historian D. Michael Quinn edited by Benjamin E. Park. See the review here. Later in 2023, they will be releasing Chosen Path: A Memoir by D. Michael Quinn. I understand that eventually his journals and letters may also be published.
[iv] For more details on the U of U Press’s other LDS-themed book of 2022, The Last Called Mormon Colonization: Polygamy, Kinship, and Wealth in Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin – By John Gary Maxwell, see this review by Conor Hilton.
[v] Sadly, an Audiobook of Method Infinite does not exist. But Google Play books will read the digital copy to you in a scarily good and realistic computer voice.
[vi] Three are mentioned in the post, the fourth, Restless Pilgrim: Andrew Jenson’s Quest for Latter-day Saint History, was not reviewed by the AML