General conference literary challenge: How many have you read?

 

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Who said it?

We’re all familiar with President Thomas S. Monson’s plentiful references to poetry, music, and literature. But — surprise — President Dieter F. Uchtdorf cited more books in this list than any other Church leader. Presidents Monson and Uchtdorf each quoted from about two dozen books in the last five years of general conference sessions. Elders Quentin L. Cook and D. Todd Christofferson came in third and fourth, with Elders Jeffrey R.  Holland and Dallin H. Oaks each contributing a handful as well.

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Sprinkled amidst the references to scriptures, previous conference talks and Church-published books, speakers at general conference occasionally cite non-LDS texts. Over the last five years, prophets and apostles have referenced or quoted from more than 100 non-LDS books during general conference sessions. How many have you read?

1. “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens
2. “A History of Christianity, Volumes 1 and 2” by Kenneth Scott Latourette
3. “A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles” selected by H. L. Mencken (a quote by Cicero was specifically cited in general conference)
4. “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens
5. “A Touch of Greatness: Encounters with the Eminent” by R.M. Lala
6. “Abortion and Divorce in Western Law: American Failures, European Challenges“ by Mary Ann Glendon
7. “Abraham Lincoln, the First American” by David Decamp Thompson
8. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll
9. “Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church” by Kenda Creasy Dean
10. “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us” by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell
11. “As You Like It” by William Shakespeare
12. “Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics” by Ross Douthat
13. “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” by Aron Ralston
14. “Change Your Life!” compiled by Allen Klein (a quotation from William Arthur Ward was specifically cited in general conference)
15. “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” by Roald Dahl
16. “Choices That Change Lives” by Hal Urban
17. “Christ the Healer” by F.F. Bosworth
18. “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010” by Charles Murray
19. “Eve’s Diary” by Mark Twain
20. “Fast and Slow: Poems for Advanced Children and Beginning Parents” by John Ciardi (the poem “Fast and Slow” was specifically cited in general conference)
21. “Faust” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
22. “Fiddler on the Roof” by Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick
23. “From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life“ by Jacques Barzun
24. “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story” by Ben Carson
25. “God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World” by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge
26. “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” by William Shakespeare
27. “Home: The Savior of Civilization” by J. E. McCulloch
28. “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë
29. “Journey to the West” by Wu Cheng’en
30. “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead” by Sheryl Sandberg (this book was cited as one of “many voices now telling women how to live”)
31. “Lectures on Education” by Horace Mann
32. “Legacy: The History of the Utah National Guard” by Richard C. Roberts
33. “Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo
34. “Letters and Papers from Prison” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
35. “Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great, Book 2” by Elbert Hubbard
36. “Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela” by Nelson Mandela
37. “Making the Most of Yourself” by Sterling W. Sill (Douglas Malloch’s “Good Timber” was specifically cited in general conference)
38. “Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys” by Kay S. Hymowitz (this book was cited as part of a list of recent titles that illustrate “the challenges of men and boys”)
39. “Masterpieces of Religious Verse” edited by James Dalton Morrison (William Knox’s “Mortality” was specifically cited in general conference)
40. “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis
41. “More Things in Heaven and Earth: Adventures in Quest of a Soul“ by Robert Blatchford
42. “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta” edited by Brian Kolodiejchuk
43. “Mother Teresa: Helping the Poor” by William Jay Jacobs (a poem by Rabindranath Tagore was specifically cited in general conference)
44. “My Life for the Poor: Mother Teresa of Calcutta” edited by José Luis González-Balado and Janet N. Playfoot
45. “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” by William Wordsworth
46. “Past and Present” by Thomas Carlyle
47. “Poems by Robert Burns” by Robert Burns (the poem “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” was specifically mentioned in general conference)
48. “Poems of the English Race” edited by Raymond Macdonald Alden (Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Sir Galahad” was specifically cited in general conference)
49. “Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (the poem “Will” was specifically cited in general conference)
50. “Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Bismarck” by Ludovic Kennedy
51. “Roughing It” by Mark Twain (this author was cited as an example of those who use humor to disparage the Book of Mormon)
52. “Shadowlands” by William Nicholson (a play portraying C.S. Lewis)
53. “Share Jesus without Fear” by William Fay and Linda Evans Shepherd
54. “Something Beautiful for God” by Malcolm Muggeridge
55. “Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers” by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton
56. “Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults” by Christian Smith
57. “Stranger to the Ground” by Richard Bach
58. “Super Sid: The Story of a Great All Black” by Bob Howitt
59. “Run to Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership“ by Donald T. Phillips
60. “The American Reader: Words That Moved a Nation” edited by Diane Ravitch (John Gillespie Magee’s poem, “High Flight,” was specifically cited in general conference)
61. “The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp“ by William H. Davies
62. “The Battle of Britain: The Greatest Air Battle of World War II“ by Richard Hough and Denis Richards
63. “The Best Loved Religious Poems” edited by James Gilchrist Lawson (Eliza M. Hickok’s poem “Prayer” was specifically cited in general conference)
64. “The Book of Positive Quotations” compiled by John Cook (a quote by Leonardo da Vinci was specifically cited in general conference)
65. “The Complete Poems of Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali” edited by  S. K. Paul (the poem “The Song That I Came to Sing” was specifically cited in general conference)
66. “The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier” (the poems “Maud Muller” and “Conduct [From the Mahabharata]” were specifically cited in general conference)
67. “The Complete Poetical Works of Longfellow” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (the poem “The Legend Beautiful” was specifically cited in general conference)
68. “The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes” (the poem “The Voiceless” was specifically cited in general conference)
69. “The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth” (the poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” was specifically cited in general conference)
70. “The Day We Found the Universe” by Marcia Bartusiak
71. “The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do about It” by Philip Zimbardo and Nikita D. Coulombe (this book was cited as part of a list of recent titles that illustrate “the challenges of men and boys”)
72. “The Discourses of Epictetus; with the Encheiridion and Fragments” translated by George Long
73. “The End of Men: And the Rise of Women” by Hanna Rosin (this book was cited as part of a list of recent titles that illustrate “the challenges of men and boys”)
74. “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
75. “The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom
76. “The Hobbit” by J. R. R. Tolkien
77. “The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah” by Alfred Edersheim
78. “The Life and Work of St. Paul” by Frederic W. Farrar
79. “The Life of Christ“ by Frederic W. Farrar
80. “The Life of King Henry V” by William Shakespeare
81. “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
82. “The Merchant of Venice” by William Shakespeare
83. “The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard: Mottoes, Epigrams, Short Essays, Passages, Orphic Sayings and Preachments” by Elbert Hubbard II (a quote by Robert Louis Stevenson was specifically cited in general conference)
84. “The Oxford Book of English Verse” edited by Christopher Ricks
85. “The Reformation” by Diarmaid MacCulloch
86. “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis
87. “The Seven Deadly Sins Today” by Henry Fairlie
88. “The Seventh Step” by Bill Sands
89. “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum
90. “The Writings of John Bradford” edited by Aubrey Townsend
91. “Themes and Variations” by Aldous Huxley
92. “Thoughts in Solitude” by Thomas Merton
93. “Twelve Tests of Character” by Harry Emerson Fosdick
94. “To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight” by James Tobin
95. “Tyndale’s New Testament” edited by David Daniell
96. “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” by Marshall Goldsmith
97. “Why There Are No Good Men Left: The Romantic Plight of the New Single Woman” by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead (this book was cited as part of a list of recent titles that illustrate “the challenges of men and boys”)
98. “Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Educational System That’s Leaving Them Behind” by Richard Whitmire (this book was cited as part of a list of recent titles that illustrate “the challenges of men and boys”)
99. “William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner” by William Hague
100. “Wisdom for the Soul” by Larry Chang (words by both Dale Carnegie and Mahatma Gandhi were specifically cited in general conference)

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