What if the facts on which we base our lives are shown to be unreliable? What if our expectations are confounded? What if we let go of those assumptions and expectations? What if we let go of our familiar, habitual ways of thinking? What if we let go of the very need to know? Unknowing is at the centre of spiritual life. It is only by creating a space in which anything can happen that we allow God to speak; only by stepping back that we allow space for that unpredictable Spirit that brings us gifts beyond any of our imaginings... "God dwells only where man steps back to give him room."

The concepts of success and failure are embedded in our culture, but how real are they? From a wide range of answers and her own experience, Jennifer Kavanagh explores some of the stereotypes on which these concepts are based, and reveals what people feel really matters in their lives. There is a growing acceptance that failure can not only lead to success but can open us to profound change. If we let go of the quest for individual perfection, and accept what is, our lives and relationships will be enriched. If we let go of our judgemental behaviour, we will no longer view life in terms of success or failure. If we let go of the need to control our lives, we will let go of goals and expectation. If we let go of our attachment to outcomes, we will be content with where and who we are. We may even go beyond the duality of opposites to an understanding of essential unity. Putting one foot in front of the other, neither afraid of failure nor triumphant with success. Living, in other words. ,

B is not a child of his time. As an outsider, he hides his secrets well. Freedom is all he dreams of. But when it comes at last, it is in the most unexpected way – and at a considerable cost.

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. This is their struggle to survive as partners.

In 1861, the great journalist and social advocate Henry Mayhew published London Labour and the London Poor, an oral history of those living and working on the streets of Victorian London. Nothing on this scale had been attempted before. On the surface, the streets of London in 1861 and in 2019 are entirely different places. But dig just a little and the similarities are striking and, in many cases, shocking. Taking Mayhew's book as inspiration, Jennifer Kavanagh explores the changes and continuities by collecting and mapping stories from today's London. Beggars, street entertainers, stalls selling a variety of food, clothes, second-hand goods, thieves and the sex trade are all still predominant. The rise of the gig economy has brought a multitude of drivers and cyclists, delivering and moving goods, transporting meals and people, all organized through smart phones but using the same streets as Mayhew's informants. The precarity faced by this new workforce would also be familiar to the street-sellers of Mayhew's day. In terms of resources, gone are the workhouses, almshouses, paupers' lunatic asylums. Enter shelters, day centres, hostels, and food banks. Let Me Take You By The Hand is an x-ray of life on the streets today: the stories in their own words of those who work and live in our capital.

Do Quakers Pray is a short book for the Quaker Quicks series that considers questions such as 'What is prayer?' and explores whether, when and how Quakers might pray. Do we pray together? Do we pray alone?

"A wise and welcome reminder of the mutuality and interconnectedness at the heart of the universe." Richard Rohr Our screens and newsfeeds are full of violent images; our world is full of poverty, inequality and injustice. We find it hard to live together, in our families, communities, or in the world at large. At the same time, we are surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, and daily life is full of acts of compassion, kindness, friendship and love. How do we reconcile these differences? What does the universe, with its countless examples of mutuality, have to teach us? Science, religion and our own experience teaches us that the whole of creation is a web of interconnectedness. This book explores the oneness at the heart of existence - and what this means for how we act in the world.

Are Quakers mystics? What does that mean? How does it translate into how we are and what we do in the world? '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 esoteric, can be truly meaningful for many today.' Terry Waite Practical Mystics is Jennifer Kavanagh's first addition to the burgeoning series Quaker Quicks, which examines every aspect of what it means to be a Quaker, from John Hunt Publishing imprint Christian Alternative.

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, in their different threads and versions of the truth, their legacy to author Jennifer Kavanagh, who shares her moments of discovery while addressing themes of Russia, Jewishness, motherhood, music, home, and language, as well as the vagaries of memory.

In folk history and religion, from the Shakers to Zen, simplicity has generally been considered a good thing. Our own motivation may be to leave a smaller carbon footprint, to express a compassionate solidarity with those who have least; or simply to downsize. Whatever our concern, it is likely that the motivation to live a simpler life will spring from within. At heart, simplicity is a focus on what matters. Reducing the clutter in our lives, whether in material objects, use of time or money, or in our religious practices, leads to an increased clarity of vision and a focus; a view of life and its priorities that is in itself simple. Step by step we can move towards a state in which our attitudes and life are all of a piece, integrated and made one. Simplicity is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. With this inspiring book, discover how simplicity can become a way of life.