Sunday, March 8, 2009

You might think it's boring but.......

The other night I checked out a book by Leonard Arrington entitled Adventures of a Church Historian. This book is Arrington's memoir about his work as a college professor, LDS Church Historian, and later as the director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute at BYU.

I have enjoyed the first seventy five pages and am about to start on why I wanted to read this book in the first place. I wanted to read Arrington's account of what it was like to work as Church Historian and his interactions with Church general authorities.

When I read Church history, I must admit, I have bias towards the more human stuff. I really enjoyed Ed Kimball's books about his Dad (Spencer W. Kimball), Richard Bushman's biography of Joseph Smith, and what I have read of Arrington's bio of Brigham Young. I doubt that I will ever read Mark McConkie's books about Joseph Smith or much of what his brother has written either. They are too parochial for me.

The only thing I am concerned about is that Lavina Fielding Anderson assisted Arrington in writing this book and, according to some, wrote some sections herself in behalf of Arrington. So the problem is to figure out when Leonard is telling the story and when is Lavina telling the story.

This book is out of print. You can buy it on Amazon.com for over one hundred dollars. A better option would be to check it out from the Provo or Orem public libraries for free.

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