Reviews Articles
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...
Quaker Shaped Christianity: How the Jesus story and the Quaker way fit together, by Mark Russ
All Quaker-shaped human beings should read Mark Russ’s book, please. Its title is intended to appeal, it seems, to Christians who are not Quakers and want to know why Quakerism has to be a thing at all. But it also serves to remind Christianity-phobic Friends that the ‘forgetting of...
A Simple Faith in a Complicated World: One Quaker’s journey through doubt to faith, by Kate McNally
This book is an introduction to the Quaker way. Most of these are written by convinced Friends trying to make sense of this convincement. The usual dilemmas must be faced: the Quaker way is experiential, so each journey is personal and unique. The language used by Friends is tentative. The...
The Atheist’s Guide to Quaker Process: Spirit-led decisions for the secular, by Selden W Smith
Pendle Hill Quaker Center has a long tradition of publishing Quaker pamphlets that challenge, inform and inspire. This one, number 472, ticks all three boxes. Its target readership is the growing number of non-Quaker nontheists who are employed by Quaker organisations: the men and women recruited partly because there aren’t...
Children of the Stone City, by Beverley Naidoo
Two young siblings use music to resist the authorities, who mistreat and oppress them. Little sister Leila plays Beethoven’s Ode to Joy on her flute, to let her brother know his family is in the overcrowded military court. There, handcuffed and shackled, he’s being led off to solitary...