Reviews Articles
Human Traces, by Sebastian Faulks
This book is about two doctors, one French, Jacques, one English, Thomas. They form a close friendship. Jacques marries Thomas’ sister Sonia. The story begins in the 1880s when mentally ill people are locked away, often indefinitely, in lunatic asylums. They are called ‘aliens’. Those caring for them are known...
Do Quakers Pray?, by Jennifer Kavanagh
Many of us already know and value Jennifer Kavanagh’s first book in the Quaker Quicks series, Practical Mystics, in which she explores the spiritually-attuned faith-in-action of Quaker experience. Her latest addition to the series helps us to think through, with wonder, the multifaceted nature of prayer as experienced by...
Peace! Books! Freedom! The secret history of a radical London building, by Rosa Schling
A small group of volunteers has been working on the digitisation of Peace News, a publication with which many Friends will be familiar. Coincidentally, as the run from 1950-1959 was uploaded, a new oral history was published of 5 Caledonian Road, the premises that Peace News occupied in 1959 (and which continues...
Bible and Poetry, by Michael Edwards
This book begins with the bold assertion that ‘we do not read the Bible as it is meant to be read’. After a sentence that casts shade on traditional theological approaches, its author goes on to explain that it’s ‘the presence of poetry in the Bible’ that is ‘the...
Callings, by Lucy Rushton
At the last Meeting for Sufferings, held in Leeds at the beginning of October, I met my f/Friend Lucy Faulkner Gawlinski. She had recently published a novel, Callings, under her maiden name of Rushton. She gave me a copy as a gift.
What’s Eating the Universe? And other cosmic questions, by Paul Davies
When he was living in Australia, Paul Davies was interviewed by the journal Island (Winter 1992). Davies is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, broadcaster, and best-selling author. In the published conversation, he discussed the philosophical implications of current cosmology. Some of what he said would have encouraged an exponent of the...
The Unexpected Marriage of Mary Bennet by Alison Leonard
It is always fascinating to read fiction by a Quaker author. Even when there isn’t a single Quaker character in the novel, the sensibilities still shine through. Here, Alison Leonard chooses one of the more overlooked members of the Pride and Prejudice Bennet family to build her story around.
Thee Quaker, produced by Georgia Sparling and Jon Watts
I have been enjoying the new(ish) North American Quaker podcast, Thee Quaker, for some months. I found it because I was looking for another podcast about Quakers when the Friend’s own podcast went on (temporary) hiatus, and now I also support it on Patreon (an online membership platform...
Black Mahler: The Samuel Coleridge-Taylor story, by Charles Elford
I was happy at my Anglican primary school in Croydon, though it was the sixties and it was ‘a different time’. We exited assemblies to the accompaniment of regimental marches played on a gramophone, and were expected to learn our letters from a reading-scheme populated entirely by middle-class children, none...
Israelophobia: The newest version of the oldest hatred and what to do about it, by Jake Wallis Simon
Friends may remember an article I wrote just a year ago: ‘Is the Religious Society of Friends antisemitic?’ (30 September 2022). It was based on an analysis of letters and articles in the Friend. It provoked a wide range of responses, not all critical. I haven’t been able to pursue the...