We missed a week or two, so let’s hope this week’s roundup makes up for it. Or, at the least, is better than nothing.

By the way, have you heard if Mormonism has been the news lately?

In a way, this last week has been a throw-back to the second half of the nineteenth century, when stories Mormon polygamy filled the American imagination, not to mention the newspapers. The New York Times featured the recent LDS Church-produced essays on plural marriage as an A1, top-fold story that proceeded to set the media ablaze. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell’s Last Word had a nice segment that included Richard Bushman as well as the author of the original NYT story, Laurie Goodstein. Other coverage was found at PBS, The Guardian, and from the always-reliable Jana Reiss. One of the most perceptive takes, I thought, was Joanna Brooks’s. I could link to a dozen other pieces, some good and some not-so-good, but you have a google machine.

And contrary to popular belief, there were a few other things in the news cycle this last week:

You might not have noticed, but there was an election last week, with two notable highlights: Mormon Utah voted in a black woman to congress, and a Mormon conservative blogger (who happens to be a bishop) said some pretty dumb things.

The LDS Church made a significant and welcomed change by allowing mothers and divorcés to be hired to teach seminary and institute.

Avi Steinberg’s recently-released The Lost Book of Mormon has received a number of thoughtful reviews, including in the Salt Lake Tribune.

In honor of the anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s demise, Deseret News had a nice column on everyone’s favorite Dieter Uchdorf and his memories of East Germany.

Signature Books, in their ever-expanding online library, reproduced Dan Vogel’s classic Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet. A good read.