2016 Christmas gift book guide

Another year, another Christmas gift book guide. I’m not going to call out the books germane to the 2017 Gospel Doctrine curriculum; however you can see those recommendations here.

     
Hoiland, One Hundred Birds Taught Me to Fly: The Art of Seeking God (MI) $12.95
Mason, Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt (MI) $15.99
Huntsman, Worship: Experiencing and Being Transformed by God (Deseret) $19.99
Miller, Future Mormon (Kofford), $17.42
It was a great year for devotional literature. We had both Hoiland (AKA ashmae of BCC fame) and Mason come to Seattle to talk about their volumes, and both experiences were moving to me. Their respective titles are useful for discerning what the books are about. You can read about Hoiland’s here and here. Steve did a Q&A with Mason about his. Thanks to the Maxwell Institute for publishing these fine volumes. Huntsman is a legitimate NT scholar at BYU and does some strong work in his volume. Jason K. reviewed it here. Miller is a regular contributor at BCC as well, and is known for highly philosophical work (frequently of the continental sort). Angela C gave his a nice review.

    
Holbrook and Bowman, Women and Mormonism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (UUP) $25.37
Turner, The Mormon Jesus: A Biography (Harvard) $21.93
MacKay and Frederick, Joseph Smith’s Seer Stones (Deseret and RSC) $24.99
I’m certainly partial to Women and Mormonism. I have a chapter in it on women and authority. But I would be a booster if mine weren’t included; it is really great. It has chapters from many different scholars of Mormonism on many topics related to the title and often associate with “agency.” I think it is a must-read. Here is a review. Turner is the author of the BY bio from a couple of years ago. I guess this is where you go from there. He has also pulled in some great reviews (see here and here). And remember when seer stones were all sorts of controversial? Now Deseret book offers the book like candy. JKC reviewed Joseph Smith’s Seer Stones and found it a bit idiosynchratic but worth checking out.

  
Smith, As Iron Sharpens Iron: Listening to the Various Voices of Scripture (Kofford) $17.68
Spencer, The Vision of All: Twenty-Five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record (Kofford) $21.90
For scripture studies (besides the Gospel Doctrine stuff linked above), we have some really interesting offerings. As Iron Sharpens Iron has different authors envision a discussion between people in scripture who have differing views. For example Amulek and Alma discussing the atonement. JKC gave a helpful review. And I know, Isaiah and the Book of Mormon. But it sounds really interesting.

  
Derr, et al., The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History (CHP) $49.95
Grow, et al., JSP: Council of Fifty Minutes (CHP), $59.95
These two are for the nerdcore of your cadre. They are big and expensive. I just went through and updated the references in my book ms to The First Fifty Years. I think I cite it more than any other single work. The Nauvoo RS minutes are the core, but there is a lot more. Steve had a nice Q&A with the editors. Also there was that time when Joseph Smith set up a shadow government to establish a theocracy and the minutes have been locked away forever. Yeah, the JSPP published them.

  
Hales, The Garden of Enid: Adventures of a Weird Mormon Girl (Kofford) $17.97
Spalding, et al., Our Heavenly Family, Our Earthly Families (Deseret) $18.99
If you haven’t seen Hale’s Garden of Enid comics around on facebook or elsewhere, well I guess you must have boring friends. These are charming and poignant and funny. And for a children’s book we have Our Heavenly Family, Our Earthly Families. Is that Heavenly Mother on the cover? Form Deseret Book?

_________________________________

GENTILE PICK

Munroe, Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words (HMH) $13.99
My kids got this last year. I still see them go back to it regularly and chuckle. Not many books can do that.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Johnson and Reeder’s The Witness of Women and Ulrich’s A House Full of Females don’t look like they will arrive before Christmas, but both will be excellent. So if you have some leeway there, they are great choices. Keep an eye out for them.