Reviews Articles
Alison Lapper: Lost in Parys
There was depressing news recently for the creative arts in the UK, as the government cut funding for performing and creative arts courses at English universities. All the more reason, then, to celebrate a new initiative to encourage young people’s engagement with the arts, focusing on how art can...
Bayard Rustin: A legacy of protest and politics, ed by Michael G Long
Everybody knows something about the 1963 March On Washington, when Martin Luther King delivered his powerful ‘I have a dream’ speech. Fewer people know that it was organised by a black Quaker, Bayard Rustin. This new book of essays on Rustin reveals how, over five decades of activism, Bayard did even...
Negotiating With the Devil: Inside the world of armed conflict mediation, by Pierre Hazan
Winston Churchill is not the first person to come to mind when one thinks of a mediator. But something he said came to mind while reading this book.
Jesus As Witnessed By the Disciple He Loved: A commentary on the gospel of John, by Alan Asay
The gospel of John has often been called the ‘Quaker gospel’, mainly, perhaps, because of its many references to light, which chime with much Quaker theological conversation today. Early Quakers were greatly inspired by this gospel, and it gives each new generation of Friends much food for thought. Alan Asay,...
The Dictionary People, by Sarah Ogilvie
Friends love wordless silence, of course, but some of us love words too, written or spoken. This book is the latest in a line of fascinating works about the history of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Consciousness Beyond Life: The science of the near-death experience, by Pim van Lommel
This book is much more than its subtitle. When I wrote a simple thank-you to its author, he sent me an article that ends with this extraordinary statement: ‘Consciousness seems to be our essence, and once we leave our body, leave our physical world, we exist as pure consciousness, beyond...
Marion Fay by Anthony Trollope
Lovers of Anthony Trollope’s novels generally admire his skill in depicting the lives and feelings of young women. But you may not know that one of his last heroines is a Friend. Trollope did not always have a high opinion of Quakers, once writing of our ‘low character for...
The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford
The Good Soldier (1915) is routinely included in lists of the best novels written in English. John Dowell, its narrator, is a Quaker from an old Pennsylvania family. He is one of those unreliable narrators, far from disinterested. He is one of the four main characters in the novel – the quartet...
Elisabeth Frink: A view from within
Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993) produced startling sculptures and artworks that continue to intrigue today. But what motivated her? How did she come to develop her art, and what was she trying to portray?
I Seek a Kind Person by Julian Borger
The title of this new book is the first line of an advertisement that was placed in the tuition column of The Manchester Guardian in August 1938, by Leo and Erna Borger. The full advertisement read: ‘I Seek a kind person who will educate my Boy, aged 11. Viennese of good family....