Leisure reading

'Women in Utah History'

Edited by Patricia Lyn Scott and Linda Thatcher

Utah State University Press,

$34.95 (hardback) $19.95 (softback)

The subject of women in Utah history is in no way a stereotype.

They included homemakers, doctors, farm workers, teachers, politicians, artists and writers.

The early history of Utah women also includes a strong feminist streak — women in Utah were among the first in the country to get the right to vote; Utah elected the first woman to ever hold a state senate seat; and female doctors were not uncommon in early Utah.

This fascinating book includes 12 articles written by various scholars who have specialized in the history of Utah women — among them Jessie Embry, Carol Cornwall Madsen, John Sillito, Helen Papanikolas, Miriam Murphy, Patricia Lyn Scott, Jill Mulvay Derr and Kathryn MacKay. Numerous wonderful photographs also dot these pages. — Dennis Lythgoe

'Pedestals and Podiums'

By Martha Sonntag Bradley

Signature Books, $39.95.

In a large volume, subtitled "Utah Women, Religious Authority and Equal Rights," Martha Sonntag Bradley does an excellent job in telling and interpreting the modern history of Utah women as related to the question of religious authority.

She explores the largely little-treated issue of whether "putting women on a pedestal" really represents adoration and respect or whether it represents a way to "keep women in their place."

Bradley recognizes the need to tie the history of women in Utah with the development of Mormonism — and the political issue of the 1970s was whether passage of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution was a wise move.

Bradley recalls attending the 1977 Utah International Women's Year Conference in Salt Lake City — along with 14,000 other LDS women, many of whom were feminists but most of whom were determined to defeat the ERA. — Dennis Lythgoe

'Hershey'

By Michael D'Antonio

Simon & Schuster, $25.