New & Recent Books

The Punctuation of Loss offers an original framework for understanding death, grief and transformation through the metaphor of punctuation. Just as full stops, commas, ellipses, colons and semicolons give structure and meaning to language, they can also illuminate the ways we experience endings, uncertainty, continuity and renewal. Drawing on literature, philosophy, psychology, medicine and cultural traditions, David Sunderland shows how loss is less something to endure, and more an essential part of what gives shape to life. Moving from personal … Read More

by Shulamith Clearidge  This comforting and inspirational book contains sacred readings from many spiritual traditions and religions, along with diverse secular selections. Its meditations, poetry, thoughts, and prayers are designed to help us put the day to rest and, with God as our final thought, with hearts at ease, sleep deeply and well.

This pamphlet explores what might get in the way of being open to the Spirit, and the joy and freedom of letting it go. The clutter that separates us from God, our essential selves, or our life’s purpose is different for everyone, and different at each stage of life. It can be material, busyness, or “inner clutter” – ways in which the ego gets in the way. We are good at some kinds of letting go, and troubled by others. … Read More

A guide to giving clear answers This is a handbook for Quakers. A guide to giving clear answers. Geoffrey Durham has been talking about Quakers and Quakerism with enquirers and newcomers for twenty-five years.

This book is a Quaker’s commentary on the heretical, long lost, but recently rediscovered Gospel of Thomas, which is an authentic early form of Christianity. It enhances  Jesus’ assertions in all 4 canonical gospels that little children belong to the Kingdom of Heaven: they belong because we are spiritual beings, animated by individual shares of the light of life. In Quaker parlance, this is the “inner light.” Thomas’ gospel reinterprets the myth of the Garden of Eden: ejection did not … Read More

A tribute to the millions of Americans who are or have been imprisoned, Sketches from Behind Prison Walls is a compelling collection of art, poetry, and anecdotes that explore what it means to love, atone, and survive behind prison walls.Incarcerated artist Rein Kolts began sketching his fellow inmates in the early years of his sentence. The subjects offered their written thoughts to accompany the drawings, giving voice to their hope and resilience. Their forlorn faces number only a few dozen … Read More

Thread of Life is a portrait of the twentieth century – its times of war and peace – seen through the lives of three generations of Jewish women. At its heart are Dora, a romantic and tragic figure, a concert pianist born in Riga, who lived in St Petersburg and was killed in the Riga Holocaust; her daughter, Genia, born in 1915 in St Petersburg, who lived in many places around the world before dying in England at the age of 102; and, … Read More

“What Canst We Say?” includes the texts of the various iterations and modifications of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Book of Discipline as it evolved between 1715 and 1755. It also includes an examination of the processes by which these developments occurred, including the texts of some Yearly Meeting minutes and publications produced during this time.The Yearly Meeting was very conscious that it was seeking a document with which the community could develop a deep unity, but also that the attainment … Read More

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Rules of Discipline from 1704 These documents came at a time of political turmoil in Pennsylvania, and interpersonal challenges within Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Much of the business minuted in the years immediately before 1704 centered on disciplinary procedures for those Quakers whose behavior was considered to be outside of the norms of the Society of Friends. The collection of these rules into discrete documents appears to be an attempt to define what the Society of Friends was, … Read More

This is a fascinating record of a small community living out its distinctive religious witness in the everyday, navigating internal and external pressures in a rapidly changing context. We enter the world of late-seventeenth-century London Quakers at ground level, and sit with them as they persistently seek divine guidance in the decisions that shape ordinary life. Judith Roads has made available a wonderful treasure-trove for anyone interested in Quaker history or in early modern English life.’ RACHEL MUERS, Professor of Divinity, … Read More