Book Reviews

I write book reviews for the Association for Mormon Letters. They are listed below in alphabetical order. I don't receive compensation for writing reviews other than complimentary copies of books from the publisher or friend. If you have a book you'd like me to review, email me at lifeongoldplates at yahoo dot com.


Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid. The Niche of Lights: A parallel English-Arabic text Translated, Introduced, and Annotated by David Buchman, (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1998).

Ash, Michael R. Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith, (Springville: Cedar Fort, 2009).

Barrett, Justin L. Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Beliefs (New York: Free Press, 2012).

Black, Susan Easton. The Best of the Frontier Guardian, (BYU Studies/University of Utah, 2009).

Brooks, Joanna. The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories From an American Faith (n.p., 2012).

Brown, Matthew B. Exploring the Connection Between Mormons and Masons, (Salt Lake City: Covenant, 2009).

Bennett, Bob. Leap of Faith: Confronting the Origins of the Book of Mormon, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2009).

Bitton, Davis. Knowing Brother Joseph Again: Perceptions and Perspectives (Salt Lake City: Kofford Books, 2011).

Bushman, Claudia L., ed. Pansy's History: The Autobiography of Margaret E. P. Gordon, 1866-1966, (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2011).

Carter, Stephen. What of the Night? Personal Essays, (Provo: Zarahemla Books, 2011).

Coats, John R. Original Sinners: A New Interpretation of Genesis, (New York: Free Press, 2009).

Cunningham, Conor. Darwin’s Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011).

Davies, Douglas J. Joseph Smith, Jesus, and Satanic Opposition: Atonement, Evil and the Mormon Vision, (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010).

Davis, James Calvin. In Defense of Civility: How Religion Can Unite America on Seven Moral Issues that Divide Us, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010).

Derr, Jill Mulvay, and Davidson, Karen Lynn. Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry, (Brigham Young University Press/University of Utah Press: 2009).

Eagleton, Terry. On Evil, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).

Eagleton, Terry. Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

Faulconer, James E. Faith, Philosophy, Scripture, (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2010).

Foster, Craig L. A Different God? Mitt Romney, the Religious Right, and the Mormon Question, (Draper: Kofford Books, 2008).

Gardner, Brant. Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, (Draper: Kofford Books, 2008).

Gardner, Brant A. The Gift and the Power: Translating the Book of Mormon, (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011).

Givens, Terryl L. The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Givens, Terryl L. When Souls Had Wings: Pre-mortal Existence in Western Thought, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Givens, Terryl L. and Matthew J. Grow. Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Gould, Stephen Jay. The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox: Mending the Gap Between Science and the Humanities (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011).

Hale, Veda Tebbs. "Swell Suffering": A Biography of Maureen Whipple, (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011).

Hallstrom, Angela, ed. Dispensation: Latter-day Fiction, (Provo: Zarahemla Books, 2010).

Hardy, Grant. Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader's Guide, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Harline, Craig. Conversions: Two Family Stories From the Reformation and Modern America, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).

Hart, David Bentley. Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009 paperback ed.).

Haslam, Molly C. A Constructive Theology of Intellectual Disability: Human Being As Mutuality and Response, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012).

Haught, John F. God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008).

Hauglid, Brian M. A Textual History of the Book of Abraham: Manuscripts and Editions, (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute of Religious Scholarship, 2010).

Hedges, Andrew H., Alex D. Smith, Richard Lloyd Anderson, eds. Journals, Volume 2: December 1841-April 1843, Vol. 2 of the Journals series of the Joseph Smith Papers Project (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2011).

Hedges, Chris. When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists, (New York: Free Press, 2009).

Higgs, Christopher. The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney, (Toluca Lake: Sator Press, 2010).

Holzapfel, Richard Neitzel, Dana M. Pike, and David Rolph Seely. Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2009).

Holzapfel, Richard Neitzel and Thomas A. Wayment. Making Sense of the New Testament: Timely Insights and Timeless Messages, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010).

Jennings, Ken. Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks, (Scribner, 2011).

Jepson, Eric W, et. al. The Fob Bible, (El Cerito: Peculiar Pages, 2009).

Lieb, Michael and Emma Mason, Jonathan Roberts, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Longhurst, John. Magnum Opus: The Building of the Schoenstein Organ at the Conference Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, (Salt Lake City: Intellectual Reserve, Inc., 2009).

Lyman, Edward Leo. Amasa Mason Lyman, Mormon Apostle and Apostate: A Study in Dedication, (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2009).

Mason, Patrick Q. The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

McCraney, Shawn. I Was a Born-Again Mormon: Moving Toward Christian Authenticity, (New York: Alathea Press, 2003, reprinted with modifications in April 2007). Published in the FARMS Review.

McDannell, Colleen, and Lang, Bernhard. Heaven: A History, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).

McNary-Zak, Bernadette and Rebecca Todd Peters, eds. Teaching Undergraduate Research in Religious Studies, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Miller, Adam S., ed. An Experiment on the Word: Reading Alma 32 (Salem: Salt Press, 2011).

Millet, Robert L. Modern Mormonism: Myths and Realities, (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011).

Mould, Tom. Still, the Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk Tradition, (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2011).

Neilson, Reid L. Early Mormon Missionary Activities in Japan, 1901-1924, (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2010).

Neilson, Reid L. Exhibiting Mormonism: The Latter-day Saints and the 1893 World’s Fair (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Northey, Margot and Bradford A. Anderson, Joel N. Lohr. Making Sense in Religious Studies: A Student’s Guide to Research and Writing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). [offsite]

Pinker, Steven. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, (New York: Viking, 2011).

Reeve, W. Paul and Van Wagenen, Michael Scott. Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore, (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2011).

Rollins, James. The Devil Colony: A Sigma Force Novel, (New York: William Morrow, 2011).

Sanders, John. No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized, (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2001 reprint).

Schweizer, Bernard. Hating God: The Untold Story of Misotheism, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Skousen, Royal. The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).


Spencer, Joseph M. and Jenny Webb, eds. Reading Nephi Reading Isaiah: Reading 2 Nephi 26-27 (Salem: Salt Press, 2011).

Spencer, Joseph M. An Other Testament: On Typology (Salem: Salt Press, 2012).

Stephens, Randall J. and Karl W. Giberson. The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age (Cambridge: Harvard, 2012).


Stutz, Howard C. "Let the Earth Bring Forth": Evolution and Scripture, (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011).

Tayson, Steven C. Shakers, Mormons, and Religious Worlds: Conflicting Visions, Contested Boundaries, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011).

Turley, Jr., Richard E., Ronald W. Walker, eds. Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris Collections, (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2009).

Turley, Jr., Richard E., William W. Slaughter. How We Got the Book of Mormon, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011).

Watt, Ronald G. The Mormon Passage of George D. Watt: First British Convert, Scribe for Zion, (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2009).

Webb, Stephen C. Jesus Christ, Eternal God: Heavenly Flesh and the Metaphysics of Matter (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Whitney, Orson F. Elias—An Epic of the Ages, "Forgotten Classics" edition, (American Fork: Grandin Press, 2010).

Whitney, Orson F. Life of Heber C. Kimball, "Forgotten Classics" edition, (American Fork: Grandin Press, 2010).

Whitney, Orson F. Saturday Night Thoughts, "Forgotten Classics" edition, (American Fork: Grandin Press, 2010).

Wright, Jonathan. Heretics: The Creation of Christianity from the Gnostics to the Modern Church, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).

Wright, N.T. Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today, (San Francisco, HarperOne, 2011).

Wright, N.T. Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters, (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2011).

Yassine, Nadia. Full Sails Ahead (Iowa City: Justice and Spirituality Publishing, 2006).