JOIN US FOR THREE-NIGHT OPEN HOUSE AND BOOK SALE
|
|
Signature Books will host a holiday open-house, book signing, and book sale at its offices Tuesday, December 13; Wednesday, December 14; and Thursday, December 15; from 6–8:00 p.m. each evening. Bring your friends, mingle with authors, and enjoy hors d'oeuvres. Plan on having a great time!
Except for the newest releases, the books will be discounted from 20–40 percent. Free gift wrapping will also be available.
The following authors will be present to sign their new or classic titles:
Tuesday, December 13th:
Ron Huggins (with Sandra Tanner), author of Lighthouse: Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Despised and Beloved Critics of Mormonism
Devery Anderson, editor of The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846–2000: A Documentary History, and Salt Lake School of the Prophets, 1867–1883; co-editor of Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 1842–1845: A Documentary History and The Nauvoo Endowment Companies; 1845–1846: A Documentary History
Gary Bergera, author of Conflict in the Quorum and editor of The Autobiography of B. H. Roberts; Confessions of a Mormon Historian: The Diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971–1997; and Line Upon Line: Essays on Mormon Doctrine; co-editor of Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 1842–1845: A Documentary History and The Nauvoo Endowment Companies: 1845–1846: A Documentary History
Constance Lieber, author of Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon: Suffragist, Senator, Plural Wife
Martha Bradley-Evans, author of Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and Equal Rights
Stephen Carter, editor of Moth and Rust: Mormon Encounters with Death
Christian Larsen, editor of Ancient Order of Things: Essays on the Mormon Temple
Bryan Buchanan, editor of Continuing Revelation: Essays on Doctrine
Wednesday, December 14th:
John Sillito, author of B.H. Roberts: A Life in the Public Arena and co-editor of Mormon Mavericks: Essays on Dissenters
Gary Bergera (see above)
Devery Anderson (see above)
Allen Roberts, co-author of Salamander:The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders
Jedediah Rogers, editor of The Council of Fifty: A Documentary History
Thursday, December 15th:
Michael Marquardt, co-author of Inventing Mormonism and Lost Apostles: Forgotten Members of Mormonism's Original Quorum of the Twelve, and editor of Later Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Gary Bergera (see above)
Devery Anderson (see above)
Signature’s offices are located at 508 W 400 N, Salt Lake City. Parking is available in the lot on the west side of the building.
January Panel to Discuss New Anthology Remembering
D. Michael Quinn
Save the date! On Thursday, January 19, at 7:00 p.m., Signature will host Benjamin E. Park, editor of DNA Mormon: Perspectives on the Legacy of Historian D. Michael Quinn, and several of the book’s essayists—including Gary James Bergera, Martha Bradley-Evans, Maxine Hanks, Patrick Q. Mason, Calvin Burke, Millie Tullis, and Brianna Bratsman—for a roundtable discussion. Last March, these authors presented their essays during a one-day conference at the University of Utah called, “D. Michael Quinn: The Life and Legacy of a Mormon Historian.” The book will be released on December 19.
Park and the essayists will sign copies of the book, available for $18.95. Benchmark Books, our partner for this event, will be on hand to sell this and other signed books by panel members. Signature will also have all of Quinn’s classic titles available for sale at 20–40 percent discounts. Join us for an exciting evening with some of Mormon studies’ leading and up-and-coming scholars reflecting on the legacy of one of Mormonism’s most prolific and admired historians. Light refreshments will be served.
The event will be held at Signature’s offices at 508 W 400 N, Salt Lake City.
|
|
Eight Myths Featured in Signature Podcast, YouTube Videos
Lessons on the "Great Apostasy" are common in LDS Sunday School classes and missionary discussions. Author Gregor McHardy spent years researching the most relevant sources, reached new conclusions challenging some of the popular ideas among church members, and shared them in his new book, Eight Myths of the Great Apostasy.
The book is available for $14.95 in paper, $9.99 as an ebook. You can learn more by visiting the Signature Books YouTube channel, where you’ll find videos by McHardy discussing two of the myths. McHardy is also featured in our latest podcast episode, which you can access here.
|
|
More Discounted Titles Available
Great news! We have recently reduced the prices of many of our titles, available for purchase online:
A 3D Tour of Latter-Day Saint History: Bringing B. H. Roberts Back to Life, edited by Steven Richardson and Ben Richardson, was $48.95; now $20.00
Breathe Life into Your Life Story: How to Write a Story People Will Want to Read, by Dawn and Morris Thurston, was $22.95; now $15.00
Confessions of a Mormon Historian: The Diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971–1997, edited by Gary James Bergera, was $150.00; now $70.00
Confidence amid Change: The Presidential Diaries of David O. McKay, 1951–1970, edited by Harvard S. Heath, was $60.00; now $25.00
Conflict in the Quorum: Orson Pratt, Brigham Young, Joseph Smith, by Gary James Bergera, was $25.95; now $15.00
Finally Statehood!: Utah’s Struggles, 1849–1896, by Edward Leo Lyman, was $34.95; now $25.00
Glorious in Persecution: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1839–1844, by Martha Bradley-Evans, was $39.95; now $29.00
Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 1842–1845: A Documentary History, edited by Devery S. Anderson and Gary James Bergera, was $39.95; now $25.00
The Mormon Church on Trial: Transcripts of the Reed Smoot Hearings, edited by Michael Harold Paulos, was $49.95; now $25.00
The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, by D. Michael Quinn, was $44.95; now $39.95
The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power, by D. Michael Quinn, was $49.95; now $39.95
Mormonism Unvailed, by Eber D. Howe, with critical comments by Dan Vogel, was $37.95; now $29.95
Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805–1830, by Richard S. Van Wagoner, was $34.95; now $29.00
Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, edited by John S. Dinger, was $49.95; now $29.99
Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1845–1846: A Documentary History, edited by Devery S. Anderson and Gary James Bergera, was $39.95; now $25.00
Nauvoo Polygamy: ‘…but we called it celestial marriage,” by George D. Smith, was $28.95; now $19.00
Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and Equal Rights, by Martha Bradley, was $39.95; now $25.00
Salt Lake School of the Prophets, 1867–1883, edited by Devery S. Anderson, was $47.95; now $24.00
Thirteenth Apostle: The Diaries of Amasa M. Lyman, edited by Scott H. Partridge, was $60.00; now $25.00
Utah Politics: The Elephant in the Room, by Rod Decker, was $24.95; now $12.00
William Bickerton: Forgotten Latter Day Prophet, Daniel P. Stone, was $35.95; now $29.00
Writing Mormon History: Historians and Their Books, edited by Joseph Geisner, paperback was $19.95, now $10.00; hardback was $34.95, now $17.00
|
|
Edited by Todd Compton
paperback: $39.95
ebook: $9.99
|
|
|
Gregor McHardy
paperback: $14.95
ebook: $9.99
|
|
|
Constance L. Lieber
paperback: $9.95
ebook: $4.99
|
|
|
Michael Hicks
paperback: $19.95
ebook: $9.99
|
|
|
Edited by Benjamin E. Park
paperback: $18.95
ebook: $9.99
Coming in December!
|
|
|
Dayna Patterson
paperback: $14.95
ebook: $9.99
Coming early 2023!
|
|
|
Stephen Carter
paperback: $14.95
ebook: $9.99
Coming early 2023!
|
|
|
Q: Your previous eight books have been mainly about American and Mormon musical history. Why did you decide to write this book?
MH: We Mormons have a notion of “bearing testimony,” which is usually a formulaic set of “I know” this and that. But I've always thought of one’s “testimony” not as a thing in your chest you have to nurture or lose (the common Mormon definition), but an honest account of what you've experienced. Imagine you're not at the pulpit but on the witness stand. That's the kind of testimony I wanted to bear—at some length!
Although history books usually reveal more about their author's lives than we like to admit, I wanted in Wineskin to finally write, head on, an account of what I experienced that led me into and kept me abiding within Mormonism—my home-brewed vintage of it, at least. Mine is not the typical “I grew up Mormon, therefore [x]” account. Mine is a Christian life, shot through with divine heathenism, a weird Pilgrim's Progress that ends up tracking an unlikely intellectual’s adventure story. And above all, I hope, it’s a small, literary thrill ride.
Q: Who are your biggest influences as memoirists?
MH: I've read countless autobiographical essays, books not so much. Among the latter I favor the short, clean, hacked-down prose of, say, Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast and, among current writers, Steve Martin's Born Standing Up and André Gregory's This Is Not My Memoir. But my strongest influences as a writer—aside from many mentioned in my book—include Pauline Kael, A. B. Guthrie, Hunter Thompson, Mickey Spillane, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and dozens of poets, from Linda Pastan to Pablo Neruda. If there is a stable thread running through all these, I leave it to others to find it. The main constant is that, when it comes to literary introspection, I don’t spend much time reading Mormon writers.
Q: Some reviewers say how well researched the book is. How do you conduct research for a memoir?
MH: That’s what I had to discover, because accuracy is the handmaid of clarity. Fortunately, I have reams of letters, including photocopies I made of every letter I wrote from my mid-teens on. And, once a Mormon, I kept a journal, at least intermittently. Newspapers, school documents, all those kinds of things, too. Unfortunately, my mom, who kept a journal from girlhood in the 1920s until the last few weeks of her life in 2015, ripped out and threw away all the pages from her life during her first two marriages. Which probably says more, with one broad ax-swing, than any anthology of entries could convey.
As for my own self-documentation, I seem to have had in mind the hope that someone would want to hear about this stuff one day. We'll see!
Q: What is the most important idea you hope readers will take away from your book?
MH: Maybe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not the Petri dish I was fertilized in but the leaven that caused my well-pounded and hammered imported dough to rise. And it was also the oven fire that dough was baked in. Maybe that perspective will give hope to others similarly blessed and/or afflicted.
Then too, the parallel thought that this church, simply put, is not Mormonism. Despite attempts to vandalize that latter term, the eclectic, visionary, creed-busting character of Joseph Smith and his followers' slightly uppity religion has the power to redeem not only a spiritual mutt like me, but even its own excesses.
Q: This memoir only goes to 1980. Is there a sequel in the works?
MH: Part of me says, “I hope not.” This book ends over forty years ago and that distance in time seems about right. Plus, while I love gossipy history, I do want to keep at least some friendships alive.
Still, I'm already seeing how my four years studying music composition at the University of Illinois (1980–1984) might end up as a book. Otherwise, what am I keeping all these files for?
|
|
EVENTS
Mormon History Association conference
June 8–11, 2023
Rochester, New York
Signature Books Open House and Book Sale
December 13, 14, and 15, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
Signature Books Offices
508 W 400 N
Salt Lake City, UT
Wineskin Book Signing with Author Michael Hicks
December 14, 7:00 p.m.
Writ and Vision
274 W Center St.
Provo, UT
DNA Mormon Panel Discussion and Book Signing
January 19, 7:00 p.m.
Signature Books Offices
508 W 400 N
Salt Lake City, UT
|
|
|
|
