By Curt Bench
Mormon bookselling provides many fun moments that provide my staff and me with life-long smiles. Whereas my June 2012 column might very well have been titled “People in LDS Bookstores Say the Darndest Things,” this one could easily be called, “Mormons Ask for the Darndest Titles.” Over the years, often by phone and sometimes in person as they fill out request cards, people have asked for the following (incorrect) titles. I’m not making any of these up.
• Out of the Pond [Added Upon]
• Nation of Sheet [A Nation Asleep]
• Scared Intimacy [Sacred Intimacy]
• Indian Intrepidations [Indian Depredations]
• Tartar of Literature [Charter of Liberty]
• Angel of Repose [Angle of Repose]
• Mirror Christianity [Mere Christianity]
• Monroe Doctrine [Mormon Doctrine]
• Last of Antelope Island [East of Antelope Island]
• The Giant of Joshua; also John and Joshua [Giant Joshua]
• The Black Slider [The Backslider]
• Walk in His Eyes [Walk in His Ways]
• Man, Nature and Distance [God, Man and the Universe]
• The Mormon Breaks [The Morning Breaks]
‑• More Precious than Rubies by Estel Ruth Young [actual author: S. Dilworth Young]
• The Incompatible Christ [The Incomparable Christ]
• Stepping Stones to an Abrupt Life [Stepping Stones to an Abundant Life]
• Handcrafts to Zion [Handcarts to Zion]
• The Three Infinitives: To Know, To Do, To Be [The Three Infinities; note: to be fair, both titles work, don’t they?]
• Major Locksmith, Mormon Raider [Major Lot Smith . . .]
• Journal of Disclosures [Journal of Discourses]
• Tits and Jottles [Jots and Tittles game]
Our staff’s favorite variations on The Fate of the Persecutors of the Prophet Joseph Smith:
• Fate of the Prosecutors . . .
• Faith of the Persecutors . . .
• Fate of the Perpetrators . . .
• Faith of the Martyrs . . .
• Fate of the Martyrs . . .
And my three favorites:
• Irrational Theology [A Rational Theology]
• The Temple in Iniquity [The Temple in Antiquity]
• Thy Virgin Paths of the Restoration [Divergent Paths of the Restoration]
