From its recorded beginning before Christ, this biblical poem was widely, and in fact exclusively, interpreted both by Jews and Christians as a hymn of God's passionate love for his chosen people. The Song of Songs is however a mysterious book, and the more modern reading of it as a celebration of human erotic love has largely displaced this older interpretation. Here, the author presents a contemporary mystical reading, with reference to some later Christian poetry, including John Donne, George Herbert and R. S. Thomas.

Strike the Cloud presents the teaching of the 14th century spiritual classic The Cloud of Unknowing in a contemporary form, through selecting and commenting on its main themes. It explores how The Cloud has been adapted by contemporary teachers of contemplative prayer, and outlines ways in which it is relevant to the bigger ecumenical and interfaith picture of today.

The product of an international, multi-disciplinary conference at Queen's University Belfast, the two-volume Friends and Foes series offers an illuminating investigation of the relationship between friendship and conflict by established and emerging scholars. In this first volume, which collects together philosophical and cultural essays on the topic, the authors raise and tackle some of the most pertinent issues central to the understanding, and making, of friendship. What constitutes friendship? What challenges, duties and pleasures does friendship entail? The ambiguity of friendship is a recurring theme in the book, and Mark Vernon's essay on the philosophical history of thinking about friendship's ambiguity provides the perfect point of entry for discussion of the compelling literary and theatrical representations which follow, in the work of writers such as Maria Edgeworth, Gregory Burke, and Edgar Allan Poe.