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A Sunday Times bestseller, this is a moving and profound exploration of life’s greatest mystery from one of the most revered religious figures of our time
Now in his ninth decade, former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway has spent a lifetime at the bedsides of the dying, guiding countless men and women towards peaceful deaths. A positive and profound exploration of the many important lessons we can learn, this is also a stirring plea to reacquaint ourselves with death. Doing so gives us the chance to think about the meaning of life itself; and can mean the difference between ordinary sorrow and unbearable regret at the end.
Radical, joyful and moving, Waiting for the Last Bus is an invitation to reconsider life’s greatest mystery by one of the most important and beloved religious leaders of our time.
“A wonderful, wise, compassionate and befriending piece of work”
Kathryn Mannix, Author Of With The End In Mind
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“Thought-provoking, revelatory, grave and comforting. It is impossible not to be moved by it in the most profound way”
Alexander Mccall Smith
“A real gem: a tender book, brimming with wisdom, beauty and compassion. Reading Holloway is like taking a long walk in the countryside – afterwards, you understand the world better, you feel less lonely”
Elif Shafak
guardian Books Of The Year
“An inclusive and hugely nourishing reminder to take stock of our mortality … Elegant, elegiac and thought-provoking”
observer
“Thoughtful, playful, courageous and deeply altruistic … a fine companion for anyone who wishes to live a life of any depth”
A.l. Kennedy
Richard Holloway
Richard Holloway was Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. A former Gresham Professor of Divinity and Chairman of the Joint Board of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen, he is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Leaving Alexandria won the PEN/Ackerley Prize and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. Holloway has written for many newspapers in Britain, including The Times, Guardian, Observer, Herald and Scotsman. He has also presented many series for BBC television and radio; Waiting for the Last Bus originated as a five-part series on Radio 4 in 2016.
‘To what degree can we manage our death - or is it mostly out of our hands? This rich series of reflections is the product of decades of contemplation and pastoral responsibility and it gently nudges us to contemplate last things, even we are inclined perhaps not to.’
RTÉ
“Richard Holloway is going to die. I, too, am going to die, and so, dear reader, are you. Holloway’s new book is a plangent and profound meditation on the ultimate inevitability.”
Stuart Kelly
Scotsman
“Because Holloway’s attachment to the rigid formulas of religious faith has loosened in the years since his retirement – he refers to himself as a “doubting priest” – he is the perfect inclusive guide to death. The free-flowing structure he adopts as he goes about his task is elegant, elegiac and thought-provoking; questions not answers, interspersed with material from a range of writers – WH Auden, Philip Larkin, C Day-Lewis, Edward St Aubyn and Atul Gawande.”
Observer
“Holloway has not died, but has spent the past few years — indeed, much of his life — thinking deeply about death, the result of which is a new book, Waiting for the Last Bus. He is also an avid reader of other people’s obits, which is why he has agreed to contribute to this, a first draft of his own. ‘I love the obituary as an art form,’ he says. ‘Done well, it’s like a short story, an encapsulation of a complex life.’”
Peter Ross
The Times