Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Advance Review for Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer


Here's an advance review from Publishers Weekly:

+++++
The Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer: LDS News, Advice and Opinion

Edited by Christopher Kimball Bigelow
Pince-Nez Press
ISBN 1-930074-17-0

If a mature religion is one that can laugh at itself, then Mormonism is growing up. The ranks of the heretofore slim world of LDS satirists (dominated by cartoonists Pat Bagley and Calvin Grondahl and columnist Robert Kirby) have been swelled by the next generation: this compilation of ruthlessly funny articles is as irreverent as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is decorous.

The book is edited by Bigelow, co-author of Mormonism for Dummies and co-founder of The Sugar Beet (an LDS version of the satirical publication The Onion). Bigelow and his staff of Sugar Beet writers, whose identities are hidden behind ultra-Mormon pseudonyms, ferret out the delicious humor tucked away in Mormonism’s quirkiest doctrines and cultural extremes in articles like: “Gay polygamists make bid for legitimacy”; “Zions Bank offers financing for scrapbookers”; and “Elvis Presley accepts posthumous baptism.”

The humor grows mostly out of the rich soil of Wasatch Front culture, so some of it may go over the heads of converts to the faith, and many stalwart Mormons would declare the writing dangerously “light-minded.” But a solid core of LDS (and LDS-raised) readers will find the Enquirer a tie-loosening, glue-gun-melting pleasure—and an excellent Christmas gift for friends and family. (Nov. 6)
++++

I hope this review helps lead to more sales and publicity...

2 comments:

Alb said...

Why isn't your identity hidden? Does that mean you are the one who will take the heat if there is any? I hope I don't need to worry? Do I?

Christopher Bigelow said...

Actually, everyone's real name is listed on the title page, so I'm not alone. It's just all the individual pieces that have goofy pseudonyms. Mine is Jack B. Kimball.