As an adult convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I don’t know much about church history, or about the men who served as presidents of the church before 1997. I’ve been trying to remedy that by studying the lives of the prophets, so when I was at Deseret Book in Seattle I grabbed this book, which chronicles the latter part of the life of Spencer W. Kimball. It’s a companion volume to an earlier, more comprehensive biography whose title I can’t remember.
Overall, I enjoyed this book more for the picture it gave of Kimball’s tenure as president of the church than for any one insight or vignette. The tone of the book is relentlessly positive, but I think that’s in large measure due to the nature of Kimball’s presidency– he presided during a time when the church was growing and stable, and when the 1978 revelation on granting the priesthood to all worthy men occurred, it represented a magnificent sea change that illuminated the church to a significant degree. If you’re not Mormon, you might not find this book all that interesting because it focuses on a number of “inside baseball” issues that aren’t very interesting to non-members. On the other hand, members– especially those who weren’t members during Kimball’s presidency– will find much to enjoy, even cherish, here.
(Orson Scott Card has a more detailed review of this book, in the guise of a comparison with Prince & Wright’s biography of David O. McKay.)
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