Deseret Book: the publisher we love to hate. Well, don’t we? For generations Deseret Book has published books and other materials unique to our culture that no mainstream publisher would have touched – we love them. We don’t like much of what they sell, and they won’t publish much that we would like – we hate them. But like our sometimes generous uncles or too-kissy aunts, Deseret Book is ours, a member of the family, and we keep running into her whenever the family gets together.

Deseret Book descends from the pioneer publishing empire of George Q. Cannon, who, with his sons and assorted others, printed the Deseret News newspaper, did job printing for the public, published many of the tracts used by missionaries, and published the Juvenile Instructor beginning in 1866. Eventually they opened a bookstore on Salt Lake’s Main Street, where they sold their own publications and books imported from elsewhere. Continue reading Deseret Book’s First Catalog, 1922 →