conor鈥檚 Year in Books

What did you read this year?

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2024

1,430

pages read

books read

conor

Joseph White Musser by Cristina M. Rosetti

Shortest Book

128

pages

Longest Book

512

pages

Average book length in 2024

357

pages

Most Shelved

28,212

people also shelved

Tales of the Chelm First Ward by James Goldberg

Least Shelved

people also shelved

conor鈥檚 average rating for 2024

5.0

it was amazing

5.0

Highest Rated on 欧宝娱乐

it was amazing

5.00 average

conor鈥檚 first review of the year

it was amazing

Ben Park鈥檚 American Zion: A New History of Mormonism is a monumental achievement. Park weaves together a remarkable amount of American political and religious context with Mormon histories, creating a deeply researched, readable narrative of the many Mormonism鈥檚 that have been present since the Church鈥檚 founding and persist in various ways to today.

Reading American Zion had me cheering, fist raised in celebration, and then bowing my head in shame Ben Park鈥檚 American Zion: A New History of Mormonism is a monumental achievement. Park weaves together a remarkable amount of American political and religious context with Mormon histories, creating a deeply researched, readable narrative of the many Mormonism鈥檚 that have been present since the Church鈥檚 founding and persist in various ways to today.

Reading American Zion had me cheering, fist raised in celebration, and then bowing my head in shame and frustration, both proud of and disappointed in my people鈥檚 past. The book is truly impressive in terms of scope, presenting ten chapters, along with a prologue and epilogue, each chapter covering roughly 20 years or so, taking readers from 1775 to the present. The dating of the book demonstrates the ways that Park leverages his training as a historian of American political and religious culture to delve into the ways that the United States鈥� history is intertwined with the history of Mormonism. The increasingly global nature of the church may lead future historians to identify different meaningful contexts to place Mormonism in, but for now, Park鈥檚 choice leads to rich and informative results.

Park packed the book from start to finish with interesting anecdotes and historical tidbits, drawing on a vast array of sources and historical research. Many of the individual narratives were familiar to me in some form, but there were still countless surprises seeing the way that Park put the entire narrative together. I was often caught off guard by the relationship between different events or people that for whatever reason I had categorized as separate in my mind, but Park draws together to shape his narrative of the many Mormonisms and the institutional church鈥檚 arc towards assimilation (and repeated wrestling鈥檚 with the implications of that arc, including movement away from).

(note: i read an ARC last year, to review for the Association of Mormon Letters, this is an excerpt from that review, which you can read in its entirety here: ) ...more

颁翱狈翱搁鈥橲 2024 BOOKS

it was amazing

conor鈥檚 last review of the year

it was amazing

Like Rachel, I have LOVED pirates since I was a small child, and yet, I haven鈥檛 read much pirate, historical fiction. IF THE TIDE TURNS is a pageturner, moving along at a quick pace, taking me along for the ride. I read the first half of the book in small chunks on my commute, waiting impatiently for the next chance to dig in to Sam and Maria鈥檚 story. I devoured the second half early this morning, unable to put it down.

I don鈥檛 read much historic ...more

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