Reading List

Last updated: Spring 2023

What follows are the books I’ve read, am currently reading, or plan to read, since my faith evolution first began in earnest in the spring of 2018. Not all of these are specific to Mormon Studies, and some are technically not even books, but I include them because they have informed my thinking about Mormonism or how I navigate my spirituality, and were significantly long enough that they could be considered “book length.” I’ve also included some that I read in full before 2018 and which I have reviewed since, if not reread in full.

For those that are available for free online, I have provided links below. Otherwise, these can all be found through Amazon, though I recommend instead shopping through Benchmark Books. The reason being is that Benchmark often has secondhand copies available, you get to support small business, and Benchmark is heavily invested in the area of Mormon Studies and Mormon scholarship. Furthermore, they are just nice people.

Books I’ve Read

Mormon Related

  • All Abraham’s Children (Mauss)
  • All Things News: Rethinking Sin, Salvation, and Everything in Between (Givens/Givens)
  • American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God, and Public Lands in the West (Quammen)
  • Answers to Gospel Questions, Vol. 1–5 (Smith)
  • Blood Atonement and The Origin of Plural Marriage: A Discussion (Smith/Evans)
  • The Book of Mormon (Intellectual Reserve)
  • Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question (Ostler)
  • Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Turner)
  • The Colony: Faith and Blood in a Promised Land (Denton)
  • Contingent Citizens: Shifting Perceptions of Latter-day Saints in American Political Culture (McBride/Rogers/Erekson)
  • The Covenant — One Nation Under God (Ballard)
  • The Changing World of Mormonism (Tanner/Tanner)
  • The Doctrine and Covenants (Intellectual Reserve)
  • Dynasty of the Holy Grail: Mormonism’s Sacred Bloodline (Swanson)
  • Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview (Quinn)
  • Educated: A Memoir (Westover)
  • Fire and Sword: A History of the Latter-Day Saints in Northern Missouri, 1836-39 (Gentry/Compton)
  • The Gathering of the Waters: A New Discussion of the Lost Tribes of Israel (McConkie)
  • The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy (Pearson)
  • The Gospel Topics Essays
  • The LDS Gospel Topics Series: A Scholarly Engagement (Harris/Bringhurst)
  • Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations (Staker)
  • A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870 (Ulrich)
  • The Inner World: A New Theory (Culmer)
  • An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins (Palmer)
  • In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Compton)
  • Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Bushman)
  • Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Vogel)
  • A Key to This Earth: The Period of God’s Work on this Planet (Dalton)
  • Kidnapped from that Land: The Government Raids on the Short Creek Polygamists (Bradley)
  • Kingdom of Nauvoo: Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier (Park)
  • The King of Confidence (Harvey)
  • LDS Faith Crisis Survey and Narratives
  • Letter to a CES Director (Runnell)
  • Michael/Adam (Kraut)
  • Mormon Doctrine (McConkie) (compare w/ first edition here)
  • Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Newell & Avery)
  • The Mormon Hierarchy (Vol 1): Origins of Power (Quinn)
  • Mormonism and White Supremacy (Brooks)
  • Mormonism Unveiled (John D. Lee)
  • Mormon Stages: Navigating Mormon Faith Crisis (McConkie)
  • The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (Buerger)
  • The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church (Riess)
  • Nauvoo Polygamy: “…but we called it celestial marriage.” (Smith)
  • No Man Knows My History (Brodie)
  • One Hundred Birds Taught Me to Fly: The Art of Seeking God (Hoiland)
  • Our Heritage: A Brief History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Intellectual Reserve)
  • Pearl of Great Price (Intellectual Reserve)
  • Power From on High: The Development of the Mormon Priesthood (Prince)
  • The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology (Stapley)
  • Queer Mormon Theology: An Introduction (Ostler)
  • Race and the Making of the Mormon People (Mueller)
  • Revelations in Context (Intellectual Reserve)
  • Saints (Vol 1): The Standard of Truth (Intellectual Reserve)
  • Saints (Vol 2): No Unhallowed Hand (Intellectual Reserve)
  • Saints (Vol 3): Boldly, Nobly, and Independent (Intellectual Reserve)
  • The Secret Chamber: Spiritual Wifery and the Doctrine of Christ (Brinkerhoff)
  • The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir (Wariner)
  • Studies of the Book of Mormon (Roberts)
  • Statements of the LDS First Presidency (Bergera)
  • Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism (Petrey)
  • The Ten Lost Tribes: A People of Destiny (McConkie)
  • Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse (Blythe)
  • Under the Banner of Heaven (Krakauer)
  • Unmask Alice (Emerson)
  • Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon (Davis)
  • Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right (Harris)
  • When the Moon Turns to Blood (Sottile)
  • World Top Secret: Our Earth IS Hollow! The Scientific, Scriptural and Historical Evidence that Our Earth Is Hollow (Cluff)
  • Worlds Without Number (Thompson)

Tangential

  • After Jesus, Before Christianity (eds. Vearncombe, Scott & Taussig)
  • Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right (Dallek)
  • The Case for God (Armstrong)
  • Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (Uscinski)
  • Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism (Montell)
  • A Culture of Conspiracy (Barkun)
  • The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon (Borg/Crossan)
  • Fundamentalism and American Culture (Marsden)
  • God: A Human History (Aslan)
  • The Heart of Christianity (Borg)
  • Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife (Ehrman)
  • The Hollow Earth (Bernard)
  • How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (Ehrman)
  • Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (De Mez)
  • Leaving the Witness (Scorah)
  • Lift High the Cross: Where White Supremacy and the Christian Right Converge (Burlein)
  • The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth (Barr)
  • Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Ehrman)
  • Off The Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything (Weill)
  • The Politics of Righteousness: Idaho Christian Patriotism (Aho)
  • Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (Borg)
  • Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power (Merlan)
  • Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement (Barkun)
  • Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories (Brotherton)
  • The Symmes Theory of Concentric Spheres (McBride)
  • Symzonia: A Voyage of Discovery (“Seaborn”)
  • They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty (Turner)
  • United States of Paranoia (Walker)
  • Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (Aslan)

Currently Reading

Mormon Related

  • Charisma Under Pressure: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1831-1839 (Vogel)
  • The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel: New Identities Across Time and Space (Tobolowsky)

Tangential

  • The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover (Martin)

On Deck

Mormon Related

  • The 1886 Visitations of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith to John Taylor (Bishop)
  • American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon (Vogel/Metcalfe)
  • The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History (Parry)
  • Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore (Reeve/Van Wagenen)
  • Book of Abraham Apologetics: A Review and Critique (Vogel)
  • Celestial Marriage: Compilation on Marriage (Broadbent/Musser)
  • Celestial Marriage: The Sermons That Cost Francis M. Darter His Membership
  • David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Prince)
  • Decolonizing Mormonism: Approaching a Postcolonial Zion (Colvin/Brooks)
  • Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History (Anderson)
  • Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy―Its Origin, Practice, and Demise (Hardy)
  • Exposé of Polygamy: A Lady’s Life Among the Mormons (Stenhouse)
  • Hosea Stout: Lawman, Legislator, Mormon Defender (Prince)
  • Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon (Vogel)
  • Jesus the Christ (Talmage)
  • The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri (Ritner)
  • Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 1842-1845: A Documentary History (Anderson/Bergera)
  • Michael: Our Father and Our God (Musser)
  • The Mormon Hierarchy (Vol 2): Extensions of Power (Quinn)
  • The Mormon Hierarchy (Vol 3): Corporate Power (Quinn)
  • Mormons and the Bible: The Place Of The Latter-Day Saints In American Religion (Barlow)
  • The Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1845-1846: A Documentary History (Anderson/Bergera)
  • Out of Obscurity: Mormonism Since 1945 (Mason/Turner)
  • The Persistence of Polygamy, Vol. 1: Joseph Smith and the Origins of Mormon Polygamy (Bringhurst/Foster)
  • The Persistence of Polygamy, Vol. 2: From Joseph Smith’s Martyrdom to the First Manifesto, 1844-1890 (Bringhurst/Foster)
  • The Persistence of Polygamy, Vol. 3: Fundamentalist Mormon Polygamy from 1890 to the Present (Bringhurst/Foster)
  • The Reed Smoot Hearings: The Investigation of a Mormon Senator and the Transformation of an American Religion (Paulos/Hansen)
  • The Rocky Mountain Saints (Stenhouse)
  • Writing Mormon History: Historians and Their Books (Geisner)
  • Wife No. 19 (Ann Eliza Young)

Tangential

  • Messianic Fulfillments: Staging Indigenous Salvation in America (Mauro)
  • New Worlds For All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America (Calloway)
  • The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (Tolle)
  • Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal (Wenger)
  • The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment (Roshi)