The J. Golden Kimball Stories

The stories were fun but I did not follow how the book was put together. It was still interesting to read.

This was a great book to read. I've heard about J. Golden Kimball And I wanted to learn more about him.

Fun book to read, regardless of religious background. The book illustrates that not all religious leaders are perfect and we all have our struggles in life.

love the book

Book'em Joe seems to have understood neither Eliason's purpose behind the book nor the folklore discipline. Obviously he went in to the book thinking it to be a biography of the famed general authority. Eliason is not trying to write a biography; he's a folklorist, NOT a biographer and never presents himself as such. Eliason's point was never to document actual events in the life of J. Golden Kimball. Rather, the point of this book is to explore Kimball folklore as it is circulated today. The fact that Eliason's sources have never seen Jim Kimball's one-man show is even more interesting; these people still know the stories from word-of-mouth circulation. That's what folklore is all about. The way these stories are told, for what purpose, in what setting to what audience, etc. This is what is interesting to a folklorist. This has more to do with character legend cycles (excuse the folklore terminology) and less to do with with historical figure. The point is to discuss the character of the legends, not the actual historical figure (sometimes these two are the same, but not necessarily). As as any good folklorist would know, it's not about what happened, it's about what people think happened. This book is about what people think happened. That's folklore. Great job, Eliason.

Eric Eliason and University Illinois Press released "The J. Golden Kimball Stories". I suggest its title should be "How to Make a Very Interesting Person Boring". As Kimball would say "what in the hell happened". I admit, I was skeptical. I thought "why would anyone in there right mind do a book on Kimball folklore when we have Thomas Cheney's "Golden Legacy" book easily available and for very little money". This book is priced at $50.00 and doesn't even come with a pretty dust jacket. I allowed others to influence me and I bought. I should have gone with my gut feeling. Why didn't Eliason do something worthy and write a scholarly biography. We don't have that. Instead he rehashes and re-invents these folklore stories, many that make no sense and are completely out of historical events and context. He puts David O. McKay as president of the church while Kimball is alive. It appears that many of the stories are told by students or friends of students that have neither heard Jim Kimball doin his one man show, read Cheney, nor read Jim's write ups in Sunstone. This is just a crappy piece of work and both Ill. and Eliason should be embarrassed. My biggest question is how in the world do you make Kimball a bore? I guess I should give Eliason praise for this because that is quite an accomplishment. The introduction and chapter intros much of the time felt like a sermon. There was never a understanding of who Kimball was. If anything I felt like I got to know Hinckley better from notes and stories. Which reminds me, I have no idea why the last chapter. It has nothing to do with Kimball. Kimball was bamboozled and I was bamboozled by this book.Cheney was a story teller, he knows Kimball and gave you Kimball. He gave context and he gave you Kimball's words. Save $40.00, get Cheney's book & dust jacket and enjoy Kimball.