Has anyone read this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/books/review/american-crucifixion-by-alex-beam.html?_r=0

"A religion whose followers believe that the Earth was created somewhere in the neighborhood of the planet Kolob, and that the Garden of Eden was created somewhere in the neighborhood of Kansas City, Mo., would seem to have so fortified itself against mockery that there’s no sport in scorning it. In this respect, Mormonism is an honest reflection of its founder, a man who offers such an easy target that providing even a partial list of his myriad and exotic transgressions feels too easy, like a distasteful piling on."

Last paragraph:

"That is why the weaknesses in Joseph Smith’s character became, for the purposes of preserving his doctrine, an unbreakable strength. An even slightly less outrageous personality could never have ensured that his followers would be hated and exiled — and thus, paradoxically, survive. Mormonism thrived not despite its prophet’s megalomania but because of it. In a common paraphrase of Tertullian’s, Credo quia absurdum est: I believe it because it is absurd. It is a formula that Joseph Smith intuitively understood."

AMERICAN CRUCIFIXION
The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church
By Alex Beam
Illustrated. 334 pp. PublicAffairs. $26.99.