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While some may view Jerald and Sandra Tanner only as despised critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is impossible to trace the course of Mormon history over the past sixty years without acknowledging their contribution. Many both inside and outside of Mormonism respect them for their unflinching quest for truth no matter the cost, as when Jerald declared Mark Hofmann’s notorious Salamander Letter a forgery months before some experts declared it authentic. Their Utah Lighthouse Ministry has operated for decades only blocks from church headquarters, where their many works on Mormonism are still printed and sold. Jerald died in 2006 but Sandra continues to oversee the ministry. 

The Tanners consistently challenged the church’s position on many historical issues. Utah Lighthouse was long the only source for Mormon scholars to obtain crucial historical reprints, which they still happily or begrudgingly purchase; for others, the Tanners’ writings have been the source of disillusionment with the church. Despised or beloved, the influence of Jerald and Sandra Tanner cannot be underestimated or ignored.

Venerated for his lyrics, Bob Dylan in fact is a songwriting musician with a unique mastery of merging his words with music and performance. Larry Starr cuts through pretention and myth to provide a refreshingly holistic appreciation of Dylan's music. Ranging from celebrated classics to less familiar compositions, Starr invites readers to reinvigorate their listening experiences by sharing his own—sometimes approaching a song from a fresh perspective, sometimes reeling in surprise at discoveries found in well-known favorites. Starr breaks down often-overlooked aspects of the works, from Dylan's many vocal styles to his evocative harmonica playing to his choices as a composer. The result is a guide that allows listeners to follow their own passionate love of music into hearing these songs—and personal favorites—in new ways.

Reader-friendly and revealing, Listening to Bob Dylan encourages hardcore fans and Dylan-curious seekers alike to rediscover the music legend.

In November 1984, Jeffrey Masson filed a libel suit against writer Janet Malcolm and the New Yorker, claiming that Malcolm had intentionally misquoted him in a profile she wrote for the magazine about his former career as a Freud scholar and administrator of the Freud archives. Over the next twelve years the case moved up and down the federal judicial ladder, at one point reaching the U.S. Supreme Court, as lawyers and judges wrestled with questions about the representation of “truth” in journalism and, by extension, the limits of First Amendment protections of free speech. Had a successful Freudian scholar actually called himself an “intellectual gigolo” and “the greatest analyst who ever lived?" Or had a respected writer for the New Yorker knowingly placed false, self-damning words in her subject's mouth? 

In Literary Journalism on Trial, Kathy Roberts Forde explores the implications of Masson v. New Yorker in the context of the history of American journalism. She shows how the case represents a watershed moment in a long debate between the advocates of traditional and literary journalism and explains how it reflects a significant intellectual project of the period: the postmodern critique of objectivity, with its insistence on the instability of language and rejection of unitary truth in human affairs. The case, Forde argues, helped widen the perceived divide between ideas of literary and traditional journalism and forced the resolution of these conflicting conceptions of truth in the constitutional arena of libel law. By embracing traditional journalism's emphasis on fact and objectivity and rejecting a broader understanding of truth, the Supreme Court turned away from the First Amendment theory articulated in previous rulings, opting to value less the free, uninhibited interchange of ideas necessary to democracy and more the “trustworthiness” of public expression. The Court's decision in this case thus had implications that reached beyond the legal realm to the values and norms expressed in the triangular relationship between American democracy, First Amendment principles, and the press.