Earlier this year the Norwegian musician Ylvis released a song The Fox (what does fox say?) Ever since, we’ve all been waiting for who could produce a Quaker version and Ben Guaraldi has finally taken the plunge and uploaded ‘What does George Fox say?’ to Youtube. This version retains the original fast-paced music of the…
by Julia Lim In this short and engrossing book, Small change big deal, Jennifer Kavanagh explores some of the major themes in recent spiritually- and ethically-based thinking about the problematic nature of our current financial systems. She does this through writing about a very specific area: the microcredit schemes developed by Mohammed Yunus (Grameen Bank),…
 by Simon Latham I was interested to discover that the topic of discussion on Melvyn Bragg’s Radio 4 programme ‘In Our Time’ on 05/04/2012 was about early Friends and the emergence of Quakerism in the mid-seventeenth century. As someone when, if asked, identifies as a Quaker, although I am unable to attend Quaker Meetings as…
The better angels of our nature by Stephen Pinker. Review by Stephen Cox This is a big book, addressing an enormous set of questions. Is war and violence inevitable? Is there a human nature and if there is, are we trapped by it? Has the bloody twentieth century shown that progress is a mirage? Pinker…
by Stephen Cox A review of Pushing at the frontiers of change: A memoir of Quaker involvement with homosexuality by David Blamires and published by Quaker Books David writes that “it is a little odd being a historian of your own life…â€Â This book sets out how Quakers moved from having little particularly interesting to…
By Michael Jardine  The Friends Meeting House by Hubert Lidbetter (William Sessions Ltd, 1961, 2nd Ed. 1979). This book is concerned with the history and descriptions of Meeting Houses and burial grounds, and covers the British Isles and the United States, but principallyEngland. Its author was the architect responsible for the post-Blitz reconstruction of the…
By Ben Jarman Before this summer, I wouldn’t have thought of Quakerism as raw material for board or card games. Several games of Unable, Unwilling, a satirical card game based on Quaker nominations, while I was at YMG this year changed my ideas. On 29 November, twenty or so Friends gathered to play Unable, Unwilling,…
Philip Gross – The Wasting Game 1994-1998 by Jay Clark Philip Gross is a Quaker and a poet. When talking about his poetry in the radio programme ‘listen to them breathing’ he described having been a Quaker and a poet for a long time, but only recently seeing where these two areas of his life…
by Jay Clark Listen to Them Breathing is a rich and insightful radio programme in which Sibyl Ruth, a Quaker and poet, talks to others about how they see their Quakerism and poetry influence and challenge one another. One of Ruth’s own poems, as well as those by Dorothy Nimmo, UA Fanthorpe and Philip Gross…
The 2011 Swarthmore Lecture by Pam Lunn , reviewed by Jez Smith. Costing not less than everything: sustainability and spirituality in challenging times, the Swarthmore Lecture 2011. “The task may appear impossible We must take the first step.” Australia Yearly Meeting epistle 2011, paraphrasing Pablo Casals. When hundreds or thousands of Quakers gather for their Yearly…