Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling

Title: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
Author: Richard Lyman Bushman
Genre: Biography
Pages: 561

Readability: N/A
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Many are calling this the definitive biography on Joseph Smith. Bushman (an emeritus Columbia professor, as well as a patriarch in the Mormon church) has spent his whole career researching church history, and beautifully pieces together all of his work in this book.

Thoughts: The subtitle to Rough Stone Rolling is "A cultural biography of Mormonism's founder." Growing up in the church, I never really thought about the culture that Joseph Smith grew up in, and what I really loved about this book is that it tells about Joseph Smith in the context of 19th century frontier America. Every chapter highlights how Joseph was a product of his age and geography, including the dirt and grit incumbent with living on the frontier. Of course Joseph was a "rough stone." At the same time, Bushman is careful to also show the ways in which Joseph was a visionary and revolutionary man, completely different from anyone else in any era. This book did nothing but increase my respect for Joseph as a man and a prophet, while at the same time adding a lot color to his personality that I didn't know about.
Disclaimer: None, except that this book is a long 561 pages. Unfortunately the text stats were not available on Amazon, but I'm sure this book is in the 98th or 99th percentile for length. And that's not even counting the nearly 200 pages of notes after the epilogue! Personally, I felt it was worth every page, but you should know that it's a bit of a project.