Alexander Hamilton


Ron Chernow - 2004
    According to historian Joseph Ellis, Alexander Hamilton is “a robust full-length portrait, in my view the best ever written, of the most brilliant, charismatic and dangerous founder of them all.”Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow’s biography gives Hamilton his due and sets the record straight, deftly illustrating that the political and economic greatness of today’s America is the result of Hamilton’s countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. “To repudiate his legacy,” Chernow writes, “is, in many ways, to repudiate the modern world.” Chernow here recounts Hamilton’s turbulent life: an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, he came out of nowhere to take America by storm, rising to become George Washington’s aide-de-camp in the Continental Army, coauthoring The Federalist Papers, founding the Bank of New York, leading the Federalist Party, and becoming the first Treasury Secretary of the United States.Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power. His is a Hamilton far more human than we’ve encountered before—from his shame about his birth to his fiery aspirations, from his intimate relationships with childhood friends to his titanic feuds with Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Monroe, and Burr, and from his highly public affair with Maria Reynolds to his loving marriage to his loyal wife Eliza. And never before has there been a more vivid account of Hamilton’s famous and mysterious death in a duel with Aaron Burr in July of 1804.Chernow’s biography is not just a portrait of Hamilton, but the story of America’s birth seen through its most central figure. At a critical time to look back to our roots, Alexander Hamilton will remind readers of the purpose of our institutions and our heritage as Americans.

1776


David McCullough - 2005
    It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King's men, the British commander, William Howe, an his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.At the center of the drama, with Washington, are two young American patriots, who, at first, knew no more of war than what they had read in books - Nathaniel Green, a Quaker who was made a general at thirty-three, and Henry Knox, a twenty-five-year-old bookseller who had the preposterous idea of hauling the guns of Fort Ticonderoga overland to Boston in the dead of Winter.But it is the American commander-in-chief who stands foremost - Washington, who had never before led an army in battle. Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough's 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history.

His Excellency: George Washington


Joseph J. Ellis - 2004
    Ellis brings the exacting scholarship, shrewd analysis, and lyric prose that have made him one of the premier historians of the Revolutionary era. Training his lens on a figure who sometimes seems as remote as his effigy on Mount Rushmore, Ellis assesses George Washington as a military and political leader and a man whose “statue-like solidity” concealed volcanic energies and emotions.Here is the impetuous young officer whose miraculous survival in combat half-convinced him that he could not be killed. Here is the free-spending landowner whose debts to English merchants instilled him with a prickly resentment of imperial power. We see the general who lost more battles than he won and the reluctant president who tried to float above the partisan feuding of his cabinet. His Excellency is a magnificent work, indispensable to an understanding not only of its subject but also of the nation he brought into being.

Defined by Christ: Seeing


Toni Sorenson - 2010
    Using the scriptures, words of prophets, insightful analogies, and stories drawn from poignant personal experiences, author Toni Sorenson illuminates the pathway toward opening the gift of divine love and finding lasting peace by focusing on God's goodness rather than our own weakness.

Led by Divine Design


Ronald A. Rasband - 2018
    Rasband shares timely counsel and personal stories about recognizing the hand of the Lord in our everyday pursuits. Through his own experience, Elder Rasband helps us learn first how to seek the Spirit and then how to recognize and respond to divine guidance in our families, with friends and colleagues, in our Church service, and during times of trial.

Our Search for Happiness


M. Russell Ballard - 1993
    Russell Ballard explains the Church and LDS beliefs in a clear and inoffensive way. Elder Ballard discusses the Apostasy, the need for the Restoration, the Book of Mormon, the priesthood, the plan of salvation, the Articles of Faith, the Word of Wisdom, temples, missionary work, and benefits of living the gospel. Through personal experiences he reveals how the gospel has benefitted him and concludes by bearing his testimony. You can feel confident in giving this book to nonmember--or less active--friends and family.

The Gospel at 30,000 Feet


Dieter F. Uchtdorf - 2017
    In this colorful, inviting format, more than 20 of his best-loved stories come together under five major themes: Principles of Flight, Lift, Guidance on the Journey, Weathering the Turbulence, and Our Eternal Destination.

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation


Kristin Kobes Du Mez - 2020
    Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority” backed Donald Trump for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Donald Trump in fact represents the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals’ most deeply held values.Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism, or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.” As Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the role of culture in modern American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals may not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical popular culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.” Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done.Trump, in other words, is hardly the first flashy celebrity to capture evangelicals’ hearts and minds, nor is he the first strongman to promise evangelicals protection and power. Indeed, the values and viewpoints at the heart of white evangelicalism today—patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community—are likely to persist long after Trump leaves office.A much-needed reexamination, Jesus and John Wayne explains why evangelicals have rallied behind the least-Christian president in American history and how they have transformed their faith in the process, with enduring consequences for all of us.

Cheers to Eternity: Lessons We've Learned on Dating and Marriage


Al Carraway - 2017
    Written for singles, newlyweds, and marriage veterans, Cheers to Eternity will help you bring new insights into your relationships, keep life in perspective, and make the rest of your life here and in eternity exciting, amazing and meaningful.

The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity


Nancy Gibbs - 2012
    Among their secrets: How Jack Kennedy tried to blame Ike for the Bay of Pigs. How Ike quietly helped Reagan win his first race in 1966. How Richard Nixon conspired with Lyndon Johnson to get elected and then betrayed him. How Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter turned a deep enmity into an alliance. The unspoken pact between a father and son named Bush. And the roots of the rivalry between Clinton and Barack Obama. Time magazine editors and presidential historians Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy offer a new and revealing lens on the American presidency, exploring the club as a hidden instrument of power that has changed the course of history.

The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom


Corrie ten Boom - 1971
    For the first fifty years of her life nothing at all out of the ordinary had ever happened to her. She was an old-maid watchmaker living contentedly with her spinster sister and their elderly father in the tiny Dutch house over their shop. Their uneventful days, as regulated as their own watches, revolved around their abiding love for one another. However, with the Nazi invasion and occupation of Holland, a story did ensue. Corrie ten Boom and her family became leaders in the Dutch Underground, hiding Jewish people in their home in a specially built room and aiding their escape from the Nazis. For their help, all but Corrie found death in a concentration camp. The Hiding Place is their story.

Presidents and Prophets: The Story of America's Presidents and the LDS Church


Michael K. Winder - 2007
    Winder, member of the Utah Board of State History. There are 43 chapters, one for each president from George Washington to George W. Bush. We see the Church rising from obscurity to political clout as America's-fastest growing religion.You will learn of the wartime President who checked out the Book of Mormon from the Library of Congress; of the President who spoke at a funeral in the Washington, DC Stake Center; the President who attended school in the Kirtland Temple; and the President who had two high priests in his cabinet. Read about what FDR wrote to Churchill about the Mormons; the President who grew up in Ohio with Lorenzo Snow; the Apostle who spent his honeymoon in the White House; and the President who quoted Alma in a letter he wrote to a missionary.One President asked that his sick wife be given a priesthood blessing. Another received a priesthood blessing himself shortly before his death. Two Presidents have attended Family Home Evenings with two different Apostles. One former President helped the Church missionary program in Africa. There was the President who telephoned Spencer W. Kimball during a stake conference to ask him a few questions, and the President who would spontaneously land Air Force One just to check on his friend David O. McKay.

What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism


Dan Rather - 2017
    Now, with this collection of original essays, he reminds us of the principles upon which the United States was founded. Looking at the freedoms that define us, from the vote to the press; the values that have transformed us, from empathy to inclusion to service; the institutions that sustain us, such as public education; and the traits that helped form our young country, such as the audacity to take on daunting challenges in science and medicine, Rather brings to bear his decades of experience on the frontlines of the world’s biggest stories. As a living witness to historical change, he offers up an intimate view of history, tracing where we have been in order to help us chart a way forward and heal our bitter divisions. With a fundamental sense of hope, What Unites Us is the book to inspire conversation and listening, and to remind us all how we are, finally, one.

The Continuous Atonement


Brad Wilcox - 2009
    Everyone knows that. But when the priest flubs it, what happens? Even though the expectation of perfection cannot be lowered, the person giving the prayer gets a second chance, and a third, and a fourth, if he needs them. No matter how many mistakes he makes along the way, when he does finally get it right, the outcome is counted as perfect and acceptable."God, like the bishop, cannot lower the standard that we ultimately become perfect," writes Brad Wilcox, "but He can give us many opportunities to start again. . . . Perfection is our long-term goal, but for now our goal is progress in that direction - continues progress that is possible only through the continuous Atonement."

Whose Values Do You Value?


John Bytheway - 1993
    Do you sometimes feel like the Lord thought up the commandments just to keep you from having fun and enjoying life? John Bytheway explains how the Lord's guidelines fit into our lives and how they can help us solve our oproblems.