Mormon church publishes its first official history in nearly a century, and the result is an easy-to-read volume that tackles some hard facts

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Few, if any, books about the beginning of Mormonism start with an Indonesian volcano.

But that’s exactly where the Utah-based faith’s new four-volume history, “Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days,” opens its exploration of the church’s first three decades.

You see, the 1815 volcano’s effects “rippled across the globe,” according to the book’s first chapter, disrupting predictable weather patterns and causing drought even in faraway Vermont, a fact that propelled the family of Mormon founder Joseph Smith to pick up stakes and move to a more fertile land in upstate New York — where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would be born.