EBOOKS!!! December 26 2013

Get a new Kindle, iPad, or e-reader this Christmas? Check out these exciting titles available as ebooks!

____________________________________________
 
Saints of Valor: Mormon Medal of Honor Recipients 
by Sherman Fleek

“Sherman Fleek brings to life the Saints who demonstrated absolutely extraordinary heroism, conspicuous gallantry and valor in action—true American heroes...” — Lieutenant Colonel Marc Boberg, U. S. Army

The majority of Kofford Books titles are available as ebooks.
Click here to see our ebook catalog

Scholarly Resources on Mormon Polygamy from Kofford Books December 17 2013

LDS plural marriage has been in the news recently.

A federal district judge in Utah, in the so-called "Sister Wives" case, ruled last week that portions of state anti-polygamy laws were unconstitutional, in effect de-criminalizing polygamy as practiced today (read the ruling here).

Additionally, the LDS Church posted a detailed and candid essay at LDS.org on the historical practice of plural marriage, including a discussion of polygamous marriages after President Woodruff issued the 1890 Manifesto. 

Several Kofford Books authors have written about Mormon polygamy. Brian Hales has written the definitive work on the Nauvoo origins of plural marriage under Joseph Smith, including a detailed analysis of the theological and doctrinal underpinningsof polygamy. Jessie Embry and Brian Hales have also both written about Mormon fundamentalism and the modern practice and experience of polygamy. And Stan Larsen has compiled detailed accounts of the experiences of Church leaders imprisoned during the 1880s for their participation in plural marriage.

______________________

Remember: save 20% on your purchases by using the promotional code 'CHRISTMAS' at checkout.

20% Discount and Free Shipping for orders over $75 December 04 2013

Merry Christmas
from Greg Kofford Books

To celebrate both the holiday season and another year of great books, we are taking 20% off all purchases and offering free shipping for orders over $75. To take advantage of this promotion, simply enter in the discount code 'CHRISTMAS' at the checkout.

This is the perfect time to get that historian in your family the complete set of Brian Hales's highly-praised Joseph Smith's Polygamy or to share the lives of Mormon women with Claudia Bushman and Caroline Kline's Mormon Women Have Their Say: Essays from the Claremont Oral History Collection.

For more gift ideas, check out our recent newsletter.

This offer lasts through December 19th.

Mormon Scholars in the Humanities: Call for Papers November 07 2013

Below is a copy of the call for papers for the upcoming MSH conference in Claremont California. If past conferences are an indicator, there will be several Kofford Books authors presenting. 

2014 MSH Call for Papers 

The study of narrative is now interdisciplinary and increasingly important within disciplinary silos. Narrative theory has also over the past few decades has been increasingly imperialistic. Long the domain of literary critics, now narrative’s theorists are claiming that all human understanding is narrative. The following are examples of some central issues regarding narrative in various disciplines. 

• I. Philosophy: the epistemological and ethical implications of story are increasingly being studied by philosophers and phenomenologists who ask if narrative is the way that human experience comes packaged. Many philosophers also insist that readers become better people (more empathetic) by reading stories.
• II. Religious Studies: scriptures most commonly come in story form. Biblical critics tussle over whether or not the narrative form undermines the content’s historicity; similar claims are made about Mormon scripture. Narrative theology often asserts that an excess escapes ratiocination, that this abundance can’t be contained by the categories inherited from the Enlightenment.
• III. History: the boundary between fiction and history has always been problematical, but over the past four decades historiography has increasingly found the boundary difficult to fix. Before the discipline attempted to become scientific, historians recognized that both literature and history were branches of the same tree—rhetoric. In the past few decades a return to the status quo ante has been achieved with a difference. 
• IV. Literature: literary criticism is the disciplinary home of narrative theory. Such theorizing has been done there longer and has developed more sophisticated vocabulary and tools than other fields. Abundant opportunities for examination of literary texts (of fictional and nonfictional kinds) exists. Wallace Martin argues that part of the recent paradigm shift in the humanities and social sciences is the return of narrative from marginal status to “inhabit the very center of other disciplines as modes of explanation necessary for an understanding of life.” 
• V. Gender Studies: The expansion of the story of equality is one notable story as women writers marked out a place for themselves. Hawthorne dismissed that mob of scribbling women who became so popular that they squeezed him out the place he thought he deserved on readers’ bookshelves. The emergence of women authors and women readers is a world-historical development in Western literacy. Readings are increasingly viewed as gendered. 
• VI. Legal studies: Stories have a revered place in legal decisions and legal reasoning. In legal arguments the heavy rhetorical lifting is often performed by case studies, examples, or hypothetical situations: stories. 
• VII. Social Sciences: narrative theory has increasingly penetrated the social sciences. For social scientists in the positivistic tradition, stories are too subjective, too anecdotal, to be proper evidence. Such narratives aren’t suitable for generalization. Is a statistic just a story trying to shed it particularity? Maynes, Pierce, and Laslett assert that narrative makes distinctive epistemological claims on us because it is individual and personal. 

Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology, Annual Conference This Weekend! October 31 2013

The Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology(SMPT) is holding its annual conference this weekend at the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, Utah. Greg Kofford Books published the proceedings of SMPT's first conference in Discourses in Mormon Theology (ed. James McLachlan and Loyd Ericson). The conference features some of the brightest and most interesting voices in Mormon philosophical and theological scholarship, and includes an impressive list of Kofford Books authors.

Among the authors featured in Kofford publications speaking at this weekend's conference are: Adam Miller, Jim Faulconer, Blake Ostler, Charles Harrell, Taylor Petrey, Dennis Potter, Joe Spencer, Bruce Young, Ben Huff, Loyd Ericson, and Paul Owen. 

Beginning tomorrow (Friday) morning, Kofford Books will be live-blogging each session of the SMPT conference at the KB Facebook page. Follow the conference there and join us in the discussions of these fascinating presentations.

Dead Wood and Rushing Water, Now Available! October 29 2013

Greg Kofford Books announces the release today of a new volume of essays on faith, culture, and family for Latter-day Saints. This collection is full of personal stories, insight, and subjects varied and interesting. For over a decade, Boyd Petersen has been an active voice in Mormon studies and thought. In essays that steer a course between apologetics and criticism, striving for the balance of what esteemed Mormon essayist Eugene England once called the “radical middle,” he explores various aspects of Mormon life and culture--from the Dream Mine near Salem, Utah, to the challenges that Latter-day Saints of the millennial generation face today.

Dead Wood and Rushing Water, writes prize-winning historian Richard Bushman, “gives us a reflective, striving, wise soul ruminating on his world. In the tradition of Eugene England, Petersen examines everything in his Mormon life from the gold plates to missions to dream mines to doubt and on to Glenn Beck, Hugh Nibley, and gender. It is a book I had trouble putting down.”

Jana Riess, author of Flunking Sainthood, writes: “Boyd Petersen is correct when he says that Mormons have a deep hunger for personal stories—at least when they are as thoughtful and well-crafted as the ones he shares in this collection.”

And Kristine Haglund, editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Though, writes: “Petersen’s essays speak in the voice of the best kind of friend—the one whose company is warm and familiar and comfortable, but who still manages to surprise you, make you laugh at unexpected moments, and show you new ways to think about everything you thought you knew.” 

Dead Wood and Rushing Water is in paperback as well as in ebook for the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, Kobo eReader, and Apple iBookstore. It will also be the first Kofford Books title available through Amazon's new Matchbook program.

Dead Wood and Rushing Water, Available October 29th! October 22 2013

Dead Wood and Rushing Water: Essays on Mormon Faith, Culture, and Family

By Boyd Jay Petersen

$22.95, 248 pages
ISBN 978-1-58958-658-1

Greg Kofford Books announces the release on October 29th of a new volume of essays on faith, culture, and family for Latter-day Saints. This collection is full of personal stories, insight, and subjects varied and interesting. For over a decade, Boyd Petersen has been an active voice in Mormon studies and thought. In essays that steer a course between apologetics and criticism, striving for the balance of what esteemed Mormon essayist Eugene England once called the “radical middle,” he explores various aspects of Mormon life and culture--from the Dream Mine near Salem, Utah, to the challenges that Latter-day Saints of the millennial generation face today.

Dead Wood and Rushing Water, writes prize-winning historian Richard Bushman, “gives us a reflective, striving, wise soul ruminating on his world. In the tradition of Eugene England, Petersen examines everything in his Mormon life from the gold plates to missions to dream mines to doubt and on to Glenn Beck, Hugh Nibley, and gender. It is a book I had trouble putting down.”

Jana Riess, author of Flunking Sainthood, writes: “Boyd Petersen is correct when he says that Mormons have a deep hunger for personal stories—at least when they are as thoughtful and well-crafted as the ones he shares in this collection.”

And Kristine Haglund, editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Though, writes: “Petersen’s essays speak in the voice of the best kind of friend—the one whose company is warm and familiar and comfortable, but who still manages to surprise you, make you laugh at unexpected moments, and show you new ways to think about everything you thought you knew.” 

Dead Wood and Rushing Water will be available in paperback as well as in ebook format through Kindle, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and Apple. It will also be the first Kofford Books title available through Amazon's new Matchbook program.

Common Ground, Different Opinions---Now Available! October 15 2013

Greg Kofford Books announces the release on October 15, 2013 of a new volume of essays, Common Ground--Different Opinions: Latter-day Saint and Contemporary Issues. Contributors include former U.S. Senator Robert Bennett, Robert L. Millet, James Faulconer, Taylor Petrey, Margaret Young, and Kristine Haglund.

There are a number of controversial topics that faithful Latter-day Saints can engage from a variety of perspectives, drawing a wide range of moral, ethical, and policy conclusions. These difficult issues--from evolution to environmentalism, war and peace to political partisanship, stem cell research to same-sex marriage--can affect how we interact as Latter-day Saints, even on the common ground of our shared religious commitments. 

In this volume various Latter-day Saint authors address these and other issues from variable points of view. Though they differ on these tough questions, they have all found common ground in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the latter-day restoration. Their insights offer diverse approaches to tough questions while demonstrating the value in loving, respecting, and listening to those with whom we disagree.

Editors: Justin F. White, James E. Faulconer. Contributors: Bob Bennett, Kent R. Brooks, Sariah Cottrell, Richard Davis, Eric A. Eliason, Daniel Fairbanks, James Faulconer, Robert L. Gleave, David Grandy, Kristine Haglund, George B. Handley, David A. Jensen, Robert Millet, Nathan B. Oman, Taylor G. Petrey, Steven L. Peck, Justin F. White, Camille S. Williams, Marleen S. Williams, Richard N. Williams, Larry Wimmer, Bruce Young, Margaret Young.

Common Ground—Different Opinions available October 10th October 04 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW TITLE FROM KOFFORD BOOKS ON CONTEMPORARY ISSUES

Greg Kofford Books announces the release on October 10, 2013 of a new volume of essays on contemporary issues for Latter-day Saints. This collection addresses controversial issues from all sides while grounding the discussion in Latter-day Saint thought and culture.  Contributors include Senator Bob Bennett, Robert L. Millet, James Faulconer, Taylor Petrey, Margaret Young; issues addressed include same-sex marriage, race, feminism, partisanship, militarism, pacifism environmentalism, science and religion, and others.

This timely compilation is certain to generate interest and discussion.  The authors and editors are available for interviews to discuss the book, their contribution, and the place of Latter-day Saints in the larger social dialogue.  If you’d like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview please contact Brad Kramer at 801.572.7417 or by email at bradk@koffordbooks.com

Official summary: “There are many hotly debated issues about which many people disagree, and where common ground is hard to find.  From evolution to environmentalism, war and peace to political partisanship, stem cell research to same-sex marriage, how we think about controversial issues effects how we interact as Latter-day Saints. In this volume various Latter-day Saint authors address these and other issues from differing points of view.  Though they differ on these tough questions, they have all found common ground in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the latter-day restoration.  Their insights offer diverse points of view while demonstrating we can still love those with whom we disagree.”

Editors: Justin F. White, James E. Faulconer.
Contributors: Bob Bennett, Kent R. Brooks, Sariah Cottrell, Richard Davis, Eric A. Eliason, Daniel Fairbanks, James Faulconer, Robert L. Gleave, David Grandy, Kristine Haglund, George B. Handley, David A. Jensen, Robert Millet, Nathan B. Oman, Taylor G. Petrey, Steven l. Peck, Justin F. White, Camille S. Williams, Marleen S. Williams, Richard N. Williams, Larry Wimmer, Bruce Young, Margaret Young.

Challenging Issues in Mormon History July 29 2013

The New York Times recently interviewed Hans Mattsson, a former regional Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, discussing the challenges that he, his wife, and many Mormons face today when encountering new aspects of Mormon history that lead them to question some of the things that they had believed for so long.

For over a decade Greg Kofford Books has sought to publish the most up to date and honest works on Mormon history and thought. We recently published a three volume set by Brian Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, that transparently discusses every aspect of Joseph Smith’s practice and teachings on polygamy, including the challenging issues of polyandry and adolescent marriages. Brant Gardner’s Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon frankly explores Joseph Smith’s use of seer stones and involvement with folk magic to understand how he translated the Book of Mormon. Charles Harrell’s This Is My Doctrine: The Development of Mormon Theology  details the evolution of Mormon teachings and beliefs from the earliest days of the Restoration through its multiple phases. Hearken O Ye People, Fire and Sword, and Mormonism in Transition examine key periods of Mormon history, where the actual events prove to be more complicated and robust than the traditional and sometimes official narratives portray them. 

Rather than publishing exposés or devotional works, we strive to be faithful to history. Our books provide a middle ground for anyone interested in Mormon Studies. 

All of these titles are available through Deseret Book, Benchmark Books, the Church History Museum, the BYU Bookstore, and other booksellers.

Tiki and Temple wins 2013 Best International Book Award June 08 2013

Tiki and Temple wins 2013 Best International Book Award from the Mormon History Association

LAYTON, UT, June 7, 2013. Marjorie Newton’s Tiki and Temple: The Mormon Mission in New Zealand 1854-1958 received the Best International Book Award at the 2013 conference for the Mormon History Association, held in Layton, Utah.

Published last year by Greg Kofford Books, Tiki and Temple tells the enthralling story of Mormonism’s encounter with the genuinely different but surprisingly harmonious Maori culture. Drawing on hitherto untapped sources, including missionary journals and letters and government documents, this absorbing book is the fullest narrative available of Mormonism’s flourishing in New Zealand. Although written primarily for a Latter-day Saint audience, this book fills a gap for anyone interested in an accurate and coherent account of the growth of Mormonism in New Zealand.

Concerning this book, Emily Johnson from Deseret News has said, “Marjorie Newton’s newest book, Tiki and Temple: The Mormon Mission in New Zealand, 1854-1958, is a detailed yet accessible documentation of the growth of the LDS faith in New Zealand.”

And Gina Colvin from International Journal of Mormon Studies has praised this book, noting: “Newton has produced a fine work, dense, historically rigorous and an important contribution in the study of the LDS church outside of the United States.”

Blake T. Ostler’s Fire on the Horizon Available June 11, 2013 May 31 2013

News Release

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Blake T. Ostler’s Fire on the Horizon Available June 11, 2013

Fire on the Horizon: A Meditation on the Endowment and Love of Atonement

ISBN: 978-1-58958-553-9; 138 pages; $17.95

Available June 11, 2013 in paperback and e-book

http://www.gregkofford.com/products/fire-on-the-horizon

Greg Kofford Books is pleased to announce a new publication by Blake T. Ostler, author of the groundbreaking Exploring Mormon Thought series.

In Fire on the Horizon: A Meditation on the Endowment and Love of Atonement, Ostler explores and provides insights into two of the most central aspects of Mormon theology and practice: The Atonement and the temple endowment.  Utilizing observations from Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber, and others on what it means to be a being in relationship, Ostler offers further ruminations on what it means to become alienated from God and to once again have at-one-ment with Him.

Advance Praise for Blake Ostler’s Fire on the Horizon:

“Fire on the Horizon distills decades of reading, argument, and reflection into one potent dose. Urgent, sharp, and intimate, it’s Ostler at his best.”—Adam S. Miller, author of Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays in Mormon Theology

“Blake Ostler has been one of the most stimulating, deep, and original thinkers in the Latter-day Saint community. This book continues and consolidates that status. His work demonstrates that Mormonism can, and indeed does, offer profound nourishment for reflective minds and soul-satisfying insights for thoughtful believers.”—Daniel C. Peterson, editor of Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture

Blake T. Ostler is available for interviews and speaking engagements. For more information please contact Natalie Gifford at (801) 572-7417

About the author:

Blake T. Ostler, a practicing attorney, is one of the premiere philosophical thinkers on Mormonism. He is the author of the multi-volume Exploring Mormon Thought series and has been published widely in journals such as Religious Studies, International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, BYU Studies, and Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.