Maybe that would have helped someone like Samuel Clemens, a k a Mark Twain, who purportedly dubbed the book "chloroform in print" long before TV, CD or DVD were anything but random letters in the alphabet.

Stockdale said the DVD gives a schedule for people trying to finish the book in a certain amount of time. "It takes only 25 hours to finish the Book of Mormon on DVD, so it's not too late for people who haven't started yet. They still have time to finish before the end of the year!" (Of course she said that on Dec. 22, not on Dec. 31, which contains only 24 hours.)

Another clue to the seriousness with which Utahns have taken up the Book of Mormon challenge: Sales of the book on CD are 10 times higher than the same quarter last year at the church's main Distribution Center near Redwood Road and 1700 South, according to an employee who requested anonymity.

Because the church produces its own Book of Mormon on CD, those sales are in addition to the thousands sold by Covenant through local bookstores.

Richard Moore, a faculty member at the Orem Institute of Religion adjacent to Utah Valley State College, said "the challenge" has been talked about by instructors and students throughout the past semester. A couple of devotionals were devoted to Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and the in-house TV feed updating students on current activities regularly encouraged them to read it.

Moore said he asked a question on his final exam about how often his students read the scriptures during the past semester. Many of the responses were "every day" or "every night," most tallied at least five days a week.

One student was brave enough to admit he or she "didn't read very often until the end of the semester, but I started reading so I could finish the Book of Mormon." He asks students the same question on every final exam, but the answers have never reflected the focus on reading he found this time.

Ironically, he said, President Hinckley has issued the same challenge in years past — once in 1979 and again in 1988. "It was fascinating to find he's encouraged us before and I don't remember doing it. Maybe it was because he wasn't the prophet, or because I was a slacker then."

He and his family planned to finish their collective reading on Dec. 23, in celebration of Joseph Smith's birthday. "I know several people who are reading it now who have never read it before, and they're doing it because the prophet asked them to."

Bill and Sid Price, former public affairs missionaries for the church in Salt Lake City, are now presiding over 170 missionaries in Washington, D.C., and asked them all to read the book — rather than listen to it — by year's end.