From Publishers Weekly
It's high time the traditional Publishers of Truth as Quakers originally called themselves published something for today's general readers outside the Quaker fold. Bill's anthology picks up where the Quaker Reader (edited by novelist Jessamyn West) left, focusing on writings from the latter half of the 20th century. The prose mix is lively: nonfiction devotional slices from modern mystic Thomas Kelly are served up along with such fiction as an excerpt from the murder mystery Quaker Testimony by Irene Allen, pen name for geologist Elsa Kirsten Peters. Such dizzying range makes the point that contemporary Quakers liberal, pastoral, evangelical can be mildly or wildly different despite common core beliefs in peace, simplicity, truth telling and ongoing divine revelation. At the same time it offers excerpts from such better known Quaker believers as James Michener and Richard Foster, the anthology introduces such unsung writers as children's book specialist Elfrida Vipont Foulds, one of a notably large cadre of women who have always been empowered in Quaker tradition to speak or write. Anthologies are necessarily arbitrary, acknowledges editor Bill, an Earlham College writing program graduate who provides helpful biographical introductions. Still, the influential writer-educator Parker Palmer should have been included. However, this collection is a welcome reminder that the small Society of Friends, as Quakers are also known, continues to offer creative and relevant witness to the truth as found within and practiced in community.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The influence of the Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers, has far exceeded its perennially small membership, especially in terms of the written word. For instance, the journals of George Fox and William Penn are classics of devotional literature. As the subtitle indicates,
Imagination & Spirit is not meant to be comprehensive. Editor Bill has chosen modern writings first published by mainstream, not religious specialty, publishers or that have proven popular in the general marketplace. Many may be surprised to learn that some very popular authors were Quakers, including Jessamyn West, whose story "Music on the Muscatatuck" comes from her classic
The Friendly Persuasion (1945), and James A. Michener, represented by an excerpt from the novel
Chesapeake (1978). Nonfiction comes from such earlier twentieth-century inspirational stars as D. Elton Trueblood and Thomas R. Kelley and contemporaries such as David Yount, Richard J. Foster, Scott Russell Sanders, and Philip Gulley, author of the best-selling Harmony books. A sampling that graciously introduces Quaker faith to Friends and non-Friends alike.
June SawyersCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
