2000 — Latter Days: A Guided Tour Through Six Billion Years of Mormonism — Coke Newell

Newell, Coke. Latter Days. Hardcover; 2000. 270 pages. Good used condition with dust jacket.

Latter Days is a memoir by Coke Newell that reflects on his experiences growing up in Utah within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and later serving as a missionary in Italy. Published in the early 2000s, the book blends humor, cultural observation, and personal reflection as Newell recounts his coming-of-age story within a distinctly Latter-day Saint environment.

Rather than offering a doctrinal critique, the memoir focuses on lived experience—missionary life, family expectations, social pressures, and the complexities of faith. Newell writes with a conversational tone, often highlighting both the earnestness and the idiosyncrasies of Mormon culture. The work drew attention for its candid portrayal of religious life, and reactions were mixed: some readers appreciated its honesty and wit, while others felt it exposed internal cultural matters in an uncomfortable way.

Ultimately, Latter Days is less a theological treatise than a personal narrative about identity, belief, and navigating adulthood within—and sometimes at the edges of—a strong religious tradition.

mormon mormons mormonism LDS 9780312241087