What We Are Reading Today: The Colony by Sally Denton

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Updated 14 July 2022
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What We Are Reading Today: The Colony by Sally Denton

In The Colony, investigative journalist Sally Denton delves into the complex story of the LeBaron clan who are fundamentalist Mormons whose forebears broke from the Latter-day Saints Church and settled in Mexico when their religion outlawed polygamy.

Denton explores what drove so many women, who found themselves in an isolated desert, navigating the often mysterious complications of plural marriage and supported only by one another, over generations to join or remain in a community based on male supremacy and female servitude.

The Colony doubles as an unforgettable account of sisterhood that can flourish in polygamist communities, against the odds.


What We Are Reading Today: Invisible Hands by Margaret S. Graves

Updated 14 February 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: Invisible Hands by Margaret S. Graves

In the heyday of Islamic art collecting around the turn of the 20th century, thousands of premodern ceramic objects circulated on the international antiquities market. 

“Invisible Hands” tells the story of how traditional craft skills of the Islamic world, often thought to have died out with the advent of industrialization, were redirected toward a thriving new market in the colonial era: the fabrication and fictionalizing of antiquities, especially ceramics.

In this stunning work of art history, Margaret Graves shakes the foundations of the discipline, challenging us to reconsider what is and is not art.