Reviews Articles
Inner Healing, Inner Peace: A Quaker perspective, by John Lampen and Diana Lampen
This is a book full of good things to marvel at, understand and apply. So much of it rings bells after the trauma of the pandemic, and its impact on families and loved ones. The issues of tension and conflict are a focus, but there is also a remarkable section...
The Varieties of Spiritual Experience: 21st century research and perspectives, by David B Yaden and
Have you ever had a spiritual experience? If so, you are among the thirty-five per cent of people who have, according to this fascinating book.
A Friendly Word, by Stephen Sayers
This book is relatively short, only about twenty pages, but it covers a huge amount of ground – Quaker ground. It aims to explain what it means to be a Quaker to young people over the age of about seven years.
You Matter: The human solution, by Delia Smith
Yes, this book is by that Delia – the one who taught us to cook, the part owner of Norwich City Football Club. The years have passed and she has turned from food and football to philosophy. Much influenced by the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the (almost heretical) French...
Battles of Conscience: British pacifists and the second world war, by Tobias Kelly
Making the choice to be a pacifist can never be easy, but being a conscientious objector (CO) in time of war must be much harder. In world war two, COs were generally treated with more sympathy than they had been in world war one, but their decision was often complicated...
Transitional, by Munroe Bergdorf
‘In one way or another, we all transition’ is the strapline under the title of this book. How true that is of us as individuals, and of us as a community.
The Thirteenth Angel, by Philip Gross
Philip Gross is not a Quaker mystic, if that’s what you’re thinking when you see the word ‘angel’ in the title of his latest book of poems. He’s not a Quaker ranter, either, I might say – not angry and satirical, which he could have been, what with...
Dining With Diplomats, Praying With Gunmen by Anne Bennett
This book arose from a conference held at Woodbrooke in 2019, at which experienced conciliators and younger peace activists came together. I was guided towards it by a Friend who shares my concern at the partisan approach of many British Friends to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The Prison Psychiatrist’s Wife, by Sue Johnson
This is a beautifully-written account of the experience of working creatively in a top security setting. It is a strongly-felt account, by our friend Sue Johnson, of what it was like to be alongside her ground-breaking psychiatrist husband Bob Johnson as they put original ideas of creativity, compassion, and challenge...
On the Level: Poems on living with multiple sclerosis, by Bryan Monte
What’s it really like living with a permanent disability that confines you to a wheelchair? Bryan Monte is a Quaker who lives in Amsterdam, where he formerly taught English in a university. He suffers from multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition that not only disables you but nags at you...