New & Recent Books

A gentle wind blows through Paul Jolly’s poems, uncovering the gaps in our knowledge, our presumptions and assumptions, the spaces in which humor, creativity, and magic are born. The stories seem familiar, but the wind-blown words, unjumbled by Jolly, no longer say exactly what they’re supposed to. Alice escapes from a pack of Disney scouts. Over-inflated cows float over a squadron of slugs. Ice cream trucks play Christmas songs. It is a collection that rebels against reality. Each poem performs … Read More

A Go-To Guide for Caregivers of Traumatized Children, Families, and Communities Trauma creates substantial pain and suffering and can inevitably create cycles of dysfunction that may span generations. We can and should break these cycles and build bridges of trust and empowerment that renew hope and help families heal, not just for this generation but for the sake of all those to follow. The good news is that children are resilient and have innate abilities to recover from their painful … Read More

Emmett Wheatfall’s As Clean as a Bone is a collection for both the heart and the mind, a collection seasoned with the vital and invigorating salt of poetry and of wisdom. This remarkable book questions history, memory, culture. Its poems don’t just talk: they wrestle with experience, they debate, they think and play, they sing out with love and pain. “Can we sing a new song?” Wheatfall asks. With their deft musical cadences and resonant depths, the poems in this new book … Read More

Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching: How to Live, Love, and Lead While teaching English in China, Jim Teeters received a copy of the Tao Te Ching from a student. Jim writes that he was drawn to Lao Tzu’s ancient meditations on what it means to be a human instrument guided by the power of the right way. Drawing on his Quaker experience of submission to the Inner Light, “the voice of Christ who speaks to my condition,” Jim waited with … Read More

Are Quakers mystics? What does that mean? And how does it translate into how we are and what we do in the world? A book in the new series of little books about different aspects of the Quaker way, Quaker Quicks. “Jennifer Kavanagh has written a lovely book which I found to be to be compelling reading. In a very practical way she explains the meaning of mysticism for Quakers and how an experience ,which some might regard as being … Read More

Suzie and Orbs are in their thirties and have been together for a couple of years. Orbs reluctantly makes a living in the City and Suzie is a respected financial journalist, but each has another life hidden from the outside world. Their secret existence is threatened first when Suzie is offered a highly visible job, and then by an accident that turns their lives upside down. The novel traces their struggle to survive as a couple, retain their privacy, and … Read More

In death will come, poet Bill Denham attempts what is nearly impossible, coming to terms with the approaching end of life without nostalgia or sentimentality. And in this collection, he succeeds, offering his astonishing gift to the world, a testament to a life lived, suffered, and loved in open-hearted service and wonder. The poems are interrelated confessions that speak directly to Denham’s mother, to his father, to his estranged daughters. They reveal with painful, lyric candor, what it is to struggle … Read More

Adventures with God in Seventy-Five Countries Raised on a prune farm in rural Oregon, in a family with deep religious roots, Dr. Norval Hadley thought he might be a pastor someday. But after the farm boy and his friends won a barbershop harmony contest, everything changed. That foursome is remembered as the world-famous Four Flats, and in 1956 the quartet signed on with World Vision. They appeared with Billy Graham, performed on the ABC radio network, and led two evangelistic … Read More

How Quakers Made Sense of God and the Bible By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the effort to keep outside influences from impacting Quaker spirituality was clearly failing. Many Friends were impressed by the Enlightenment emphasis on reason in religion and commitment to religious and political freedom. Many others were caught up in Evangelical enthusiasm and commitment to social justice. The result was a series of separations and divisions—Quakers disagreed about the nature of God, the atonement, and the … Read More

Poems of love, death, a little sex, ALS, dementia, and the widow’s life thereafter Our love songs have no shadows. We dare not acknowledge the deep love that can coexist with loss. But in this timely and timeless collection, Peg Edera offers what we didn’t know we needed: a proposal in the dark, a squad car filled with lilacs, tears saved for the right time, toast and honey. The world of illness and dying is demanding and complex. Peg documents … Read More