Reviews Articles
People Power: Fighting for Peace
In the past hundred years the world has experienced conflict, warfare, worldwide destruction and violent death. It has also seen the growth of a mass mobilisation of people opposed to settling conflict by violent means – a rejection of war. The Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London was set up in 1917...
A bundle of insights
‘What is most personal is most universal,’ said Carl Rogers, the well-known psychologist. We can discover the truth of this in the new play by Lynn and Dave Morris, The Bundle. It follows one woman’s journey from a heartless home and abusive marriage in Chechnya through her escape to...
Beyond belief
Hugh Mackay has written a new book, Beyond Belief: How we find meaning, with or without religion, that contains much interesting information about the current state of religion in Australia: only about eight per cent of the population, for example, go to church each week; about twenty per cent go...
Out of the silence
There is a light that shines from Terry Waite’s new book Out of the Silence. It is the light of hope – a light that sustained him throughout his prolonged period of captivity between 1987 and 1992. He was in solitary confinement for four of these years, often chained, beaten and blindfolded,...
Extreme caring
Dear Beryl,’ wrote a friend to the author’s wife, ‘I hear that you have been struck down.’ Beryl had suffered a stroke. Stuart Donnan, in his new book Extreme Caring – You Have To Go On, tells the story of the sixteen years that followed, through Beryl’s subsequent illnesses...
Alexander von Humboldt
Friends who are concerned about environmental issues, and the impact we humans are having upon our planet, might be interested in a book by Andrea Wulf – The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science.
Being mortal
Anyone who has a parent, or hopefully two, who are, let us say, getting on a bit, or are themselves in their later years, should find Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, written by American doctor Atul Gawande, compulsory reading.
Is anybody there?
There are few writers on religion whose books are guaranteed bestsellers. The former bishop of Edinburgh and head of the Anglican church in Scotland is one of them. From Godless Morality in 1999, through a series culminating in A Little History of Religion, Richard Holloway’s deep affection for religious tradition,...
Lessons from the past
The value of the past to inform, inspire and challenge us today is given a very telling validation in John Lampen’s excellent new book, A Letter from James: Essays in Quaker history.
The life well spoken
When a person you know and respect writes an authentic autobiography, which touches on aspects of your own life journey, almost every page holds some fascination that brings both enjoyment and challenge. This is my experience of Brian Brown’s Born to be Free – The indivisibility of Freedom, subtitled A...