#FridayReads, Aug. 10–“Under the Banner of Heaven,” Jon Krakauer

#FridayReads, August 10–Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, Jon Krakauer’s engrossing account of the blood-drenched history of Mormonism, from the Mountain Meadows massacre in 1857 to the religious murders committed by the fundamentalist Lafferty brothers in American Fork, Utah, in 1984. The paranoid machinations of the founders of this cultish movement, and its zealous adherents, is startling, as is the secrecy that has attended it in more modern decades. I recommend this book for a greater understanding of the movement that animates Mitt Romney and his co-religionists. Photos of the front and back cover are from the copy I am reading.

Also, while driving on vacation recently we listened to the audio book of Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare: The World as Stage, read by the author. It was enormously enjoyable.