Reviews Articles
Being Real: The apostle Paul’s hardship narratives and the stories we tell today, by Philip Plyming
Philip Plyming is the new cathedral dean up here in Durham. He is also new to publishing books: the last thing he brought out was a 2001 pamphlet called ‘Harry Potter and the Meaning of Life’. Now he is in charge of the cathedral where scenes in the boy-wizard film were...
Enlarging the Tent by Jonathan Doering and Nim Njuguna
Enlarging the Tent: Two Quakers in conversation about racial justice offers an insightful approach for individual and group consideration of racial justice issues. In eight tender and thoughtful conversations, Jonathan Doering and Nim Njuguna raise important questions about anti-racism and how to respond to it. Each conversation deserves time for...
All Shall Be Well, by Richard Essberger
When I was first introduced to All Shall Be Well, I had not yet met Richard Essberger, its author. We had, however, been in a correspondence about one of the characters in the book – Tessa Rowntree, who plays a small but pivotal role in the story. The Rowntree Society, where...
in this space we breathe, by Khadija Saye
Among the powerful exhibits at the new Faith Museum in Bishop Auckland is a row of images by Khadija Saye, a Gambian-British photographer born in London in 1992. This series, in this space we breathe, was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2017, and has also been displayed at the British Library.
Rustin, directed by George C Wolfe
Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) was a pioneering US Quaker activist for civil rights, nonviolence, and gay rights. He was a pioneer of desegregation, and was beaten and arrested for sitting on the second row of a bus as early as 1942 (this later inspired the Freedom Riders). From 1944-1946 he was imprisoned...
Our Last Awakening: Poems for living in the face of death, edited and annotated by Janet Morley
A few months ago I was sent, anonymously, this book of poems on the theme of death and bereavement. It is quite extraordinary to receive such a gift out of the blue. If the donor is reading, I am grateful!
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...