“Must Read” Books on Mormonism and the LDS Church:

• Overview:
  • Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (Hardcover), by Richard and Joan Ostling
  • The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-Day Saints, by Leonard J. Arrington (Author), Davis Bitton
• On the 19th Century Church:
  • Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism, by Marvin S. Hill
  • The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, by D. Michael Quinn
• On the 20th Century Church:
  • David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, by Gregory Prince
  • The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation, by Armand Mauss
  • The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, by D. Michael Quinn
  • Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930, by Thomas G. Alexander
• On Joseph Smith:
  • No Man Knows my History: The Life of Joseph Smith, by Fawn Brodie
  • Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, by Richard Lyman Bushman
  • An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, by Grant Palmer
  • Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, by Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery
  • Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, by D. Michael Quinn
• On Polygamy:
  • Mormon Polygamy: A History, by Richard S. Van Wagoner
  • In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, by Todd Compton
• On Women’s Issues/Feminism:
  • Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, Edited by Maxine Hanks
  • Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and Equal Rights, by Martha Sonntag Bradley
• On the Book of Mormon:
  • By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion, by Terryl L. Givens
  • Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church, by Simon Southerton.
• Mountain Meadows Massacre:
  • The Mountain Meadows Massacre, by Juanita Brooks
  • Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, Glen M. Leonard
• On Reconciling Thought and Faith:
  • A Thoughtful Faith, Edited by Philip Barlow
  • Adventures of a Church Historian, by Leonard Arrington
  • The Best of Lowell L. Bennion: Selected Writings, 1928-1988, by Lowell Lindsay Bennion and Eugene England
  • Lowell L. Bennion: Teacher, Counselor, Humanitarian, by Mary Lythgoe Bradford
  • Religion and The Pursuit of Truth, by Lowell Bennion
  • Why the Church is as True as the Gospel, by Eugene England (Author)
  • Believing History, by Richard Lyman Bushman, Reid L. Neilson, Jed Woodworth
• Fiction:
  • The Backslider, by Levi Peterson