I've been reading the biography of Gordon B. Hinckley--more like a hagiography, really. He can do no wrong and the book is full of Faith Promoting Stories. The author must have been pressured to make him look good...? What say you?

My guess is that he/she was fed the information by the church and the Hinckley family so most of what was learned about Gordo was highly slanted. In this sort of situation, where you are trying to please a certain audience, i.e. faithful LDS, there is no point it digging or double checking facts or attempting a tell-all. The intended audience wants to read the information the church and family desperately want people to believe anyway so basically, the author is just there to compile the stories into a readable form without dispute. No pressure necessarily - just no motivation to write anything other than what they are told to write. No one cares about Gordo, other than faithful Mormons, so the book probably wouldn't sell if it isn't targeted at them.

He wants to sell books. The audience doesn't want to hear that GBH was just a dumb buffoon saddled with selling a defective product.

Those books are almost written like fairy tales.

However, the one about Howard Hunter came in handy when I was TBM. I just so happened to read his biography when I was just starting college.

It mentioned that while Howard was in college he requested that he be given no callings so he could focus on his school work.

Shortly after that the bishop wanted to call me into the YW presidency. I told him about Howard. I told him that I had an even bigger burden because I had 3 kids, a husband and a house to maintain. If not having a calling while in school was good enough for Howard , then it was good enough for me. The bishop actually went with that.

So, any of you out there that are in college and are being worn out by a calling, you may want to look up the book about Howard and how he was free of callings while in school. It may work.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2016 12:45AM by madalice.

When I've finished with Gordo's inspiring life, I have the Monson bio ready to go. They should make big budget Hollywood movies from these comic gems.

I found the Monson bio to be so unbelievably boring that I couldn't finish it, and that was when I was ultra-TBM.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2016 01:37PM by liesarenotuseful.

The trouble with monsons bio is that the second half goes into this drama about those wonderful saints in Germany and bla bla bla about the berlin wall and how much they were all suffering and how much they are sooo loved by monson.

Really German/Russian politics have nothing to do with Monson or his life.

I assume the book you're referring to was authored by Sheri Dew, CEO of Deseret Books. Sheri was once called as a Counselor to the president of the Relief Society.

She has authored a number of such books including a bios of both GBH and ETB. These are books about people who lived an exemplary life, or how to live one yourself.

As with others who write such books, she has undoubtedly drawn on the extensive hagiographic resources of both Deseret Book and the LDS Church. Cha-ching, cha-ching, keep-em coming.

Ms. Dew has apparently been successful in both the church world and the corporate world, swimming up-current amidst a sea of priesthood-holding men. And she's reportedly single.

She is actually reportedly lesbian, long-time partner of Wendy Nelson, who was a safe pick when Russ Nelson need a new wife. Wendy Nelson and Sheri Dew reportedly still own a house together. I do not think it's far-fetched, either. When you're in with the right crowd, you get to live a life free of the rules that burden everyone else.

It's not unprecedented, nor is the acceptance on the part of the priesthood unprecedented. Here's a short extract from Connol O'Donovan's 'history of The Mormon Gay':

"In 1883, 33 year old (Mrs.) Louie Felt (first wife of Joseph Felt) met 19 year-old May Anderson, and they also fell in love. This time, however, May did not marry Joseph Felt. (He'd previously married two young ladies Louie fell for.)

"In 1889 May Anderson moved in with Louie, and Joseph permanently moved out of the house Louie had built and bought on her own.[12] Thus began one of the most intense, stable, and productive love relationships in turn-of-the-century Mormonism.

"These two women lived together for almost 40 years, and together presided over three of Mormonism's most significant institutions: the General Primary Association (for Mormon children), the Children's Friend (a magazine for young Mormons), and founding the Primary Children's Hospital.[13]

"Louie and May were fairly open about the romantic and passionate aspects of their relationship, as reported in their biographies published in several early issues of the LDS Children's Friend. According to their recent biographer, Felt and Anderson's relationship was a "symbiotic partnership with each compensating for the weaknesses and complementing the strengths of the other".

"The 1919 Children's Friend biography more bluntly declared that 'the friendship which had started when Sister Felt and [May Anderson] met...ripened into love. Those who watched their devotion to each other declare that there never were more ardent lovers than these two'.

The same biography also calls the beginning of their relationship a 'time of love feasting', and makes it clear that the two women shared the same bed.[14]

"Twice in the Children's Friend, Anderson and Felt were referred to as 'the David and Jonathan' of the Primary, which, the magazine explained, was a common appellation for the women. For centuries, the biblical characters David and Jonathan have been classic signifiers of male-male desire and homoeroticism, because in the Hebrew scriptures, it was written in 2 Samuel 1:26 that upon Jonathan's death in battle, David lamented, 'very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.'[15]

That these two women were described as 'David and Jonathan' simultaneously masculinizes them and firmly encodes their love for each other in a homoerotic context."
--http://www.connellodonovan.com/abom.html


I bet the openness of their relationship is a real ball buster to current TBM mormon lesbians. (although the notion of TBM lesbians is hard to fathom...)

I bought a copy of Gordo's biography (dirt cheap at DI), hollowed it out, and put a liquor flask in it. I gave it as a gift to some friends (an exmo gay couple) and they loved it! So there are a couple of people who liked the book.