Esther

The Season’s big experiment is to catalog and present as many artworks by LDS people as we can find. Frank Zappa once quipped, “So many books, so little time.” No kidding. The many books by LDS authors appear mostly from four sources: commercial entities (books from publishing houses large and small), university presses (scholarly books from big universities in the US and abroad), self-publication (books published directly by their authors), and Church-owned or aligned publishers (books, often devotional, but not exclusively, written to an audience connected to the faith).

Although all publishers would love to bridge the awareness divide between readers and authors, each of the above faces unique difficulties reaching LDS readers for their volumes. For those reasons, consider yourself deputized to spread the word about books by LDS authors. Here’s a new title for you: Esther: For Such a Time As This (Covenant Books) tells the story of the biblical queen using source material from the Bible, the writing of Josephus, and Apocryphal texts, combined into an epic told in blank verse poetry. Its author is Bruce T. Forbes. (Esther is to be released May 10.)