We may need our enemies for our own healing, maintains Trevor Williams, the Director of Corrymeela, the reconciliation centre in Northern Ireland. He talks to Faustina Starrett.

Pierre Spoerri finds both inspiration and food for thought in Alain de Botton’s, ‘The consolations of philosophy’.

Peter Everington returns often to 'The Testing of Hearts', a book written amid the tensions of the Holy Land.

Catherine Guisan-Dickinson reads two books which express diametrically opposed views of European union.

Charis Waddy joins Indian historian Rajmohan Gandhi on a journey through the history, pain and hope of his subcontinent.

Margaret Smith finds lessons for peacemakers in a book which looks at conflict resolution through the lens of Jewish tradition.

Laurie Vogel reflects on Michael Ignatieff's recent book on ethnic conflict.

'Old and new wars: organized violence in a global era' by Mary Kaldor: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, £12.99

In the clear frosty pre-dawn of 17 November I was watching the Leonid meteor shower. Not far away a tawny owl was calling. Pieces of comet debris blazing trails through the earth's atmosphere, and a hunter able to catch mice in near darkness--wonders of physics and biology.

Fifteen years ago in a ground-breaking article in Foreign Policy magazine in the United States, Joseph V Montville described the relatively new concept of citizen diplomacy. By this he meant the unofficial initiatives of private citizens and groups to help open lines of communication and build trust between those involved in international conflicts.