The Selected Letters of Juanita Brooks

Craig Smith is a retired archaeologist living in the Salt Lake Valley. His interests include the archaeology and history of the West. In addition to many archaeological publications, he has contributed historical articles to the Utah Historical Quarterly, BYU Studies, Overland Journal, and Journal of Mormon History.

"Smith's book offers us a fresh and more intimate encounter with Juanita Brooks than we get even in Levi Peterson's superb biography. He has selected about one-fourth of the extant Brooks letters, focusing tightly on her personality and development as a Utah historian, and they read almost like the diary that she never kept. Even though I was the one who processed the Brooks papers at the Utah State Historical Society, I feel like I know her better now than I ever have." -Gary Topping, author of Utah Historians and the Reconstruction of Western History "This book is a portrait of a brilliant, down-to-earth woman whose accomplishments are clearly established. It can easily take its place among others that tell the story of the history of the west, the people who lived it and those who bring it to life." -Linda King Newell, coauthor of Conscience and Community: Sterling M. McMurrin, Obert C. Tanner, and Lowell L. Bennion "Brooks was a fabulous letter writer, and she treated her correspondence as a journal. This new collection demonstrates her wit, humor, brilliance, and earnestness.... If you're interested in the development of the modern Mormon historical conscious, the origins of New Mormon History, or even the intellectual dilemmas of modern Mormonism in the wake of World War II, this is a fabulous collection."-Benjamin Park, benjaminepark.com "The Selected Letters of Juanita Brooks is an inspirational volume for a spectrum of persons interested in Mormon and Utah history. Perhaps more than previous biographies, Craig Smith's keen curation offers readers a chance to sit with Juanita at her workbench." -Association for Mormon Letters