Reviews Articles
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....
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...