Quite a ride for author of 'Rolling'

It's been two and a half years since Richard Bushman's "Rough Stone

Rolling" rolled off the presses and you'll have to pardon the

Harvard-educated professor if he still doesn't quite know how to behave

like a rock star.

"I find it (the attention) somewhat embarrassing," says the author of

arguably the most provocative, talked-about mainstream book dealing

with Mormon history ever.

His "Rough Stone Rolling," a biography of Joseph Smith, the Mormon

prophet, has gone through six printings and counting since its release

in 2005, and there are now 100,000 copies in print.

"I think it's surprised Knopf," Bushman says, referring to the book's

New York publisher. And he knows it's surprised him. "I was hoping we'd

sell 20,000," he says.

But the world, as it's turned out, was ready for an unvarnished

presentation of the life and times of the boy prophet who started a

church in 1830 that now has more than 13 million members worldwide,

with over a million right here in Utah.

"I think the response represents a maturing of the Mormon culture,"

says Bushman, himself a believing, practicing Mormon. "People are ready

for a realistic picture of Joseph Smith. They want to know him

straight, not as someone lifted two or three feet off the ground."

They also want to know about the book's author.

Ever since

the book's release, Bushman has been in constant demand as a speaker.