Here are some recommendations for exploring Quakerism from Being a Quaker: A Guide for Newcomers. They will be updated regularly.

A good place to start is the Britain Yearly Meeting website. You can find your nearest Local Meeting there, read the whole of Quaker Faith & Practice, watch film clips, contribute to the online forum and become absorbed in a rich fund of material about Quaker life and work. All Area Meetings have a web presence, too, so a little research may yield detailed information about the meetings near you.

While you’re at the computer, a search of YouTube could be useful – at the time of writing, you will discover a series of short films in which British Quakers talk about their faith and I’m sure new material will be added in the future. You may also want to try one of the many Quaker blogs. A particular favourite of mine is www.nayler.org, which carries some fascinating stuff, including a series of articles called Why Am I A Quaker, How I am A Quaker, of potential interest to both Quakers and newcomers.

If you’re ever in London, you might pay a visit to the Quaker Centre (173 Euston Road, NW1 2BJ, 020 7663 1030). As well as an excellent café, there’s a lively bookshop and a worship space. If you can’t make it in person, their outreach team is available to email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and there’s a freephone number: 0808 109 1651. Get in touch and they will be happy to send you a free pack of Quaker material for newcomers. If you’re particularly interested in material for young people, do be sure to specify that in your request.

The outreach department are also the people to talk to if you are interested in attending an enquirers’ weekend. Held two or three times a year at Charney Manor in the Oxfordshire countryside and Swarthmoor Hall in rural Cumbria, these exploratory retreats for newcomers can prove to be a rewarding experience. Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham too, plays a major part in British Quaker life. It offers a year-round programme of courses, conferences and events in a friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

A huge number of books is published about Quakerism. Some are for newcomers. Many more are written by Quakers for Quakers, but you may still find those worth reading for the insights they provide into the openness and eclecticism of the Religious Society of Friends. Chief among them are Advices & Queries (Appendix 3 of this book, but available free as a pocket-sized booklet at the Quaker Centre and many meeting houses) and Quaker Faith & Practice (London: The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain [Quakers], 4th edition, 2009).
 
Quaker Faith & Practice is an essential text. You can read it in full at the Quaker website or buy it in book form. It gives Quakers information and advice on holding their meetings and running their affairs, but that is only the beginning. It also comprises a collection of extracts, paragraphs and sentences written by Quakers over the last three and a half centuries that I and many others have found to be uniquely enlivening and inspirational. There are chapters on personal journeys, close relationships and living faithful lives; you can read passages on peacemaking and social responsibility; one section, entitled ‘Reflections’, has become a source of spiritual nurture to large numbers of Quakers who make time to read from it every day. It is a treasury of wisdom and hope. Unusually for the core work of a religious group, the whole book is recompiled from scratch every thirty years or so, ensuring that it remains contemporary and relevant to each new generation.

There is annual lecture (the Swarthmore) which anyone can attend and for which there is always an accompanying book. Some of the greatest Quaker writing is to be found in the many Swarthmore Lectures of the past, so it would be invidious to give too much emphasis to any in particular, but here are four of my personal favourites to start you off: Forgiving Justice by Tim Newell (2000; 2nd ed. London: Quaker Books, 2007); Spirited Living by Simon Fisher (London, Quaker Books, 2004); Ground and Spring by Beth Allen (London: Quaker Books, 2007); and The Amazing Fact of Quaker Worship by George Gorman (1973; reprinted, London: Quaker Books, 2010).

The last of these, The Amazing Fact of Quaker Worship, is a thoughtful reflection on the inner life and power of Quaker meetings. It is well written and engaging. There are several other useful books on worship, two of which deserve special mention: John Punshon’s Encounter with Silence (Richmond: Friends United Press, 1987), a deeply personal account of one man’s spiritual search, and the excellent handbook Journeying the Heartlands, edited by Elizabeth Brown and Alec Davison (London: The Kindlers, 2009).

If you want to read about Quaker peacemaking, two more Swarthmore Lectures stand out: Peace is a Process by Sydney Bailey (London: Quaker Home Service, 1993) and True Justice by Adam Curle (1981; 2nd ed. London: Quaker Books, 2007). If you are interested in conscientious objection and the reasons for it, I have never read a more thought-provoking or impassioned challenge to the institution of war than Diana Francis’ Rethinking War and Peace (London: Pluto Press, 2004).

Two books on Quaker faith in action next. The first, the aptly named Faith in Action: Quaker Social Testimony, edited by Elizabeth Cave and Ros Morley (2000; 2nd ed. London: Quaker Books, 2007), contains a number of absorbing articles, including an essay by Jonathan Dale on the ways in which personal faith can be deepened through action. And the second by a prolific and personable American, Parker J. Palmer, takes its title and theme from a well-known Quaker advice – Let your Life Speak (San Franciso: Jossey Bass, 2000).

History is well represented in Quaker publishing. A fine, compact account is John Punshon’s Portrait in Grey (1984; 2nd ed. London: Quaker Books, 2006). Another good source is The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction by Ben Pink Dandelion (Oxford University Press, 2009), which gives a clear rundown of the essentials and provides a helpful overview of the different strands of world Quakerism. If you would like a more academic approach, looking at Quakers in their theological and sociological context world-wide, then try the same author’s An Introduction to Quakerism (Cambridge University Press, 2007) which has a similar agenda, while being fuller and more complete.

Readers who want to immerse themselves in Quaker literature of the past might start with the selections in Quaker Faith & Practice (see above): as well as some fine religious writing, they will discover a host of possibilities for further exploration. Those who want to engage with the thoughts of early Quakers could move on to two outstanding spiritual autobiographies. The Journal of George Fox and The Journal of John Woolman are both available as glossy paperbacks, but a good starting point might be to dip into their online editions, to be found at www.strecorsoc.org/gfox/title.html and www.strecorsoc.org/jwoolman/title.html respectively. George Fox in particular, though, can be a difficult read and so Rex Ambler’s Truth of the Heart (2001; London: 2nd ed. Quaker Books, 2007) comes as a godsend. He has chosen extracts from Fox’s work and reordered them, so they speak the author’s message more clearly to modern readers; he has also provided idiomatic ‘translations’ from the original seventeenth century English on each facing page. Coming a little more up-to-date, Thomas R. Kelly’s A Testament of Devotion (1941; reprinted San Francisco, Harper Collins, 1992), a twentieth century classic of religious mysticism, must be on any list of great Quaker writing. And you might get more ideas from a guided anthology for newcomers that I have compiled, with selections ranging from 1652 to modern times, entitled The Spirit of the Quakers (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2010).

Two introductions to Quakerism that have a place in any list of recommendations are A Light that is Shining by Harvey Gillman (1988; 3rd ed. London: Quaker Books, 2003) and Jim Pym’s Listening to the Light (London: Rider Books, 1999). The first has been a standard work for over twenty years and is packed with insights and helpful advice. The second takes Advices & Queries as its theme, observing modern Quakerism through its insights and challenges – an original slant that works well.  And a third recommendation in this category, though it is less an introduction to Quakerism than a joyous honouring of it, is Ben Pink Dandelion’s Celebrating the Quaker Way (London: Quaker Books, 2009).

A brilliant introduction to Quakers for people already attending meetings but want to find out more is Becoming Friends: Living and Learning with Quakers. It is available online and in print (London: Quaker Books, 2010). In both cases, it can either be browsed or followed as a course, giving further references and fascinating tangents to follow up along the way. Your meeting may already have a facilitator or ‘companion’ to assist you in this innovative learning project.

There is a weekly magazine, The Friend , a bi-monthly, Quaker Voices and a quarterly journal, Friends Quarterly (for subscriptions and other queries, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). There are also many other magazines published by special interest groups of British Quakers.

Finally, a word about the publishers of Being a Quaker: A Guide for Newcomers: Quaker Quest is an outreach initiative that has been in operation for more than ten years. It began in London, but has now spread across the UK and beyond. Each meeting gives an opportunity for Quakers to talk in public about their faith and, crucially, for newcomers to question, discuss and pursue their thoughts on the subject in an unconditional and relaxed way. It is an open forum in which everybody learns, including the Quakers. You can find out if there is a Quaker Quest happening near you on this website.

Quaker Quest has also published some inexpensive booklets on subjects suggested by the newcomers who attend their events. Each consists of twelve short articles on a topic, reflecting the differences and similarities in the thinking of the writers who, while they share a religious faith, nonetheless have a multiplicity of views about it. So far, the titles are: Twelve Quakers and God (London: Quaker Quest, 2004), Twelve Quakers and Worship (2004), Twelve Quakers and Pacifism (2005), Twelve Quakers and Evil (2006), Twelve Quakers and Simplicity (2006), Twelve Quakers and Jesus (2007), Twelve Quakers and Equality (2007) and Twelve Quakers and Faith (2009). The first seven are also published in a single volume as New Light (Winchester: O Books, 2008).