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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: June Book Group - Fathomless Riches
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
I'm starting this off today, as I'm not sure if I'll have time to post this up tomorrow. I'll post some questions on the 20th June.
June's book group chocie is Fathomless Riches - Or How I went from Pop to Pulpit by Richard Coles. You can read a review here. It is a rolicking read, following the highs and lows of his life from son of a wealhy family, through the 80s pop scene to conversion to Christianity and his decision to become a priest.
Warning! - There is a lot in the 'pop star' bit about drugs and sex.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I think I'd give it a go. Pop star memoirs featuring "here are all the drugs I did and here are all the people I screwed -- literally and metaphorically" can be tedious (I spent ages trying to crawl through Anthony Kiedis's Scar Tissue before finally giving up), as can "I once was lost but now am found" Christian memoirs, but the little I've seen of Rev Coles (when he's been a guest on QI) makes me think he might be capable of transcending both genres, so I'll likely read it.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
I have a library copy and will join in.
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"Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple."
— Woody Guthrie
http://saysaysay54.wordpress.com
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
Can I join in? If so, are there any rules?
Read the book and loved it. Lent it to quite a few people.
[ 01. June 2015, 08:36: Message edited by: leo ]
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
Hi Leo,(and anyone else interested)
Of course you are welcome to join in. We'll start the discussion on the 20th, when I'll post some questions. That will give all those interested time to read the book. These questions are just discussion starters, so feel free to add other questions or insights then.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarasa:
Hi Leo,(and anyone else interested)
Of course you are welcome to join in. We'll start the discussion on the 20th, when I'll post some questions. That will give all those interested time to read the book. These questions are just discussion starters, so feel free to add other questions or insights then.
Thanks - look forward to it.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
Just flagging up that I'll be posting some questions on this this weekend. Looks like it'll be a select bunch of us discussing it.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
The problem for me has been that it is not out in paperback until September so the options are Kindle minus pictures or buy hardback. Library books don't work as I read on my commute and they trigger the alarms wherever I go.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
The Kindle version should have the pictures. Ebooks normally include pictures if the original paper book has pictures, and when I look at the preview for the Kindle version of this book, it has a list of illustrations in the contents, so it would be odd if they weren't included.
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The problem for me has been that it is not out in paperback until September so the options are Kindle minus pictures or buy hardback. Library books don't work as I read on my commute and they trigger the alarms wherever I go.
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) whoops, I'm so sorry, I slipped up there. I don't usually add a book to our programme unless it's out in paperback. Mea culpa.
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"Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple."
— Woody Guthrie
http://saysaysay54.wordpress.com
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
It rather depends on the age of the Kindle. This one will do black and white line drawings, not much else.
Ah, true, you won't see them very clearly on a basic Kindle. I use my tablet or my laptop when I want to look at pictures in a Kindle book, and then they show clearly. If you can do that, at least these pictures are all grouped together, in two sections, rather than being interspersed between text throughout the book, so you could just look through them when you finish reading the book.
I would have bought the Kindle book, but I couldn't tell if it was a book I would enjoy or not, and £10 is a bit expensive, so I borrowed it from the library instead.
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I'll be reading it over the weekend.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
Not many questions this month. Feel free to add your own.
1. Did you read this (apart from it beeing the SOF book of the month) because you knew about Richard Coles and wanted to know more, you knew it was about his change from 'pop star to pulpit' or for some other reason?
2. The Guardian review describe the book as being honest to a fault, something it doesn't always think is true of autobiographies. Do you agree?
3. Do you enjoy autobiographies in general and ones about spiritual journeys in particular. Any favourites?
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
Posts: 2035 | From: London | Registered: Jan 2007
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarasa:
1. Did you read this (apart from it beeing the SOF book of the month) because you knew about Richard Coles and wanted to know more, you knew it was about his change from 'pop star to pulpit' or for some other reason?
I have met him twice and his band was iconic hen i used to go clubbing.
I also know some of the people and places in the book - Sara Maitland, Mirfield, Fr. Gaskell, the MC at S. Alban's Holborn who uses a silver stick to point out dog poo when there's an outdoor procession.
Also, Coles' conversdion experience at the elevation of the host is similar to my own.
A teacher friend of mine says that Coles is the only priest that many teenagers have ever heard of so he's a bit of an advert for the C of E.
2. The Guardian review describe the book as being honest to a fault, something it doesn't always think is true of autobiographies. Do you agree?
Yes. Some are self-promoting. Coles is honest about his being gauche, about his desperation to be lked and to have sexual partners. The whole book is a bit like the confessions of Augustine.
3. Do you enjoy autobiographies in general and ones about spiritual journeys in particular. Any favourites?
I like both.
One to avoid is Mervyn Stockwood's It lacks any self-knoweledge whatsoever.
Much more honest and similar to Coles's is
Harry Willams
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
1. Did you read this (apart from it beeing the SOF book of the month) because you knew about Richard Coles and wanted to know more, you knew it was about his change from 'pop star to pulpit' or for some other reason?
I'd been meaning to read it for awhile, the book club just gave me an excuse. I had seen Richard Coles on QI and was intrigued that a C of E vicar was apparently such good chums with the very atheist Stephen Fry (and seemed quite comfortable on the program where religion is quite frequently and mercilessly mocked), and when I looked up a bit more about him and started following him on Twitter and Facebook, I thought he was not only an interesting person but talked about things in an interesting way. This seemed to bode well for a book written by him.
2. The Guardian review describe the book as being honest to a fault, something it doesn't always think is true of autobiographies. Do you agree?
Yes, it feels very honest, and he's certainly unscathing about his own faults. I'm trying to remember what book it was I read recently -- it might have been John Cleese's memoir -- where a reviewer said that the author had blamed other people for everything that went wrong in his life, which wasn't my impression at all -- I thought he had been very fair in admitting his own faults. I thought the same of this book -- that Coles was sometimes unflattering about other people but far more often about himself.
3. Do you enjoy autobiographies in general and ones about spiritual journeys in particular. Any favourites?
I love memoirs, especially ones with a spiritual focus. My favourites include anything by Anne Lamott, Nora Gallagher, Nadia Bolz-Weber or Rachel Held Evans, but I could probably think of dozens more given time.
One thing I usually DON'T like are celebrity memoirs, especially the kind that feature a lot of casual sex and drug use, because they are often quite boring (to me anyway). As I said further up this thread, Anthony Kiedis's "Scar Tissue" is the worst example of this I can think of offhand. There was a bit much of this in the middle part of Fathomless Riches for me, but Coles's narrative voice was self-deprecating and funny enough that it kept me going.
It's quite well-written although there are a few glaring editing errors that I'm surprised his editor didn't catch; maybe some of them were only in the e-book version.
My added question...
Did it end in the right place?
No it did not, as it left out the part I was most interested in: his life after ordination. I'm particularly fascinated by (and skeptical of?) the oft-repeated claim that he and his partner live in a celibate civil partnership. When I first heard this I assumed it was a long-time partnership and that after his ordination they agreed to celibacy out of respect for the church's rules for priests, which would have been hard enough, but upon reading the book I realized that, since the book ends with his ordination, this relationship must have begun after that and thus has presumably never been what most of this of as a "normal" marriage (i.e. the kind where you have sex, at least now and then, with your partner, unless illness or disability prevents it.) While my curiosity about this might seem like an intrusion on Rev. Coles's privacy, he certainly was not shy about sharing details of his and his partners' and his friends' private lives throughout the book. So I thought that that whole aspect of it, as well as other aspects of how this person from such a decidedly un-clerical background made the transition to life as a clergyman, were left untouched and that was unfortunate.
The cynical publishing side of my brain says he's probably saving that for a second book.
I did enjoy it quite a lot despite it stopping at the part I was most curious to know about.
[ 21. June 2015, 14:04: Message edited by: Trudy Scrumptious ]
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
fascinated by (and skeptical of?) the oft-repeated claim that he and his partner live in a celibate civil partnership. When I first heard this I assumed it was a long-time partnership and that after his ordination they agreed to celibacy out of respect for the church's rules for priests, which would have been hard enough, but upon reading the book I realized that, since the book ends with his ordination, this relationship must have begun after that and thus has presumably never been what most of this of as a "normal" marriage (i.e. the kind where you have sex, at least now and then, with your partner, unless illness or disability prevents it.)
I seem to remember an interview in which he said that one of the legacies of drug use was impotence (or words to that effect.)
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Boadicea Trott
Shipmate
# 9621
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Posted
The sequel, "Into the Harvest", is due out 10 Mar 2016 and is the book I really want to read.
I worked my way through "Fathomless Riches" several months ago but was really far more interested in reading about his religious conversion than anything else. ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boadicea Trott:
The sequel, "Into the Harvest", is due out 10 Mar 2016 and is the book I really want to read.
Ah well that answers my question and proves my cynical conjecture correct, then. I guess it's not that cynical of a money-grab as he has lived a two-volume life, so far. I will definitely want to read the next book.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
1. Did you read this (apart from it beeing the SOF book of the month) because you knew about Richard Coles and wanted to know more, you knew it was about his change from 'pop star to pulpit' or for some other reason?
He has a regular 'faith' slot on the Radio 2 breakfast show with Chris Evans . Richard has a smooth voice, a good sense of humour and his 'thought' is always pithy and to the point. I was interested to find out how he came to faith.
2. The Guardian review describe the book as being honest to a fault, something it doesn't always think is true of autobiographies. Do you agree?
Yes. It comes across as a confessional, almost therapy. He is very hard on himself, rather too hard.
The only other autobiography where I can remember the author being so self critical is Eric Clapton's, who has also survived a sex drugs and rock n roll lifestyle and is making amends.
3. Do you enjoy autobiographies in general and ones about spiritual journeys in particular. Any favourites?
I love autobiographies. Just nosey, I am. Among those I've enjoyed are Is That It? by Bob Geldof, Some Other Rainbow by John McCarthy and Jill Morrell and the 3 volumes of Dodie Smith's. These wouldn't be classed as spiritual really, but they are vivid and honest and sometimes shocking.
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"Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple."
— Woody Guthrie
http://saysaysay54.wordpress.com
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
1. Did you read this (apart from it beeing the SOF book of the month) because you knew about Richard Coles and wanted to know more, you knew it was about his change from 'pop star to pulpit' or for some other reason?
I was interested, as years ago, I read a book called something like Why I'm a Catholic with various people talking about their faith. When he popped up years later on QI etc. as an Anglican vicar I was interested to know what happened.
2. The Guardian review describe the book as being honest to a fault, something it doesn't always think is true of autobiographies. Do you agree?
I had a few issues with this. He sounded very honest, but I kept on getting the feeling that he was over egging his contrition at some of his past misdemenours.
3. Do you enjoy autobiographies in general and ones about spiritual journeys in particular. Any favourites?
I do enjoy autobiographies though sometimes I wish I hadn't read them. I always liked John Peel till I read
Margrave of the Marshes for instance. My favourite is Frank Skinner's which has some great stuff about his return to the Catholic faith (as well as some rather rude jokes).
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
I don't think I would have read it if it hadn't been SoF Book of the Month, but I don't often read SoF Books of the Month especially.
There's something postmodern about an autobiography in which in an early chapter the author tells us that as a teenager he was prone to making up stories about his life to make it seem more interesting. (Not that I think there's anything especially made up in the book.)
It is, as Coles suggests about half way through, a classic evangelical conversion memoir. First the author has a life of sex and drugs and rock and roll, and then he finds Jesus. It is rather more honest than one's stereotype of the genre about what was wrong with the sex and drugs and rock and roll bit of his life, and about all his problems not being sorted out by finding Jesus, and of course about still being fine with being gay.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Baptist Trainfan
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# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It is, as Coles suggests about half way through, a classic evangelical conversion memoir. First the author has a life of sex and drugs and rock and roll, and then he finds Jesus.
It has been suggested that, in the past, this was the way in which stricter Evangelicals - forbidden from reading racy novels - got their literary 'kicks'. They were SUPPOSED to rejoice in the subject's conversion, but his/her former life was far more interesting!
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It is, as Coles suggests about half way through, a classic evangelical conversion memoir. First the author has a life of sex and drugs and rock and roll, and then he finds Jesus.
It has been suggested that, in the past, this was the way in which stricter Evangelicals - forbidden from reading racy novels - got their literary 'kicks'. They were SUPPOSED to rejoice in the subject's conversion, but his/her former life was far more interesting!
It's kind of a trope in Evangelical preaching too -- the preacher who spends fifty minutes thrilling you with the lurid details of his pre-conversion life, then in the last ten minutes wraps it up with the story of his conversion.
This sometimes did feel a bit like that, and I was definitely more interested in his post-conversion life and ministry, so I am glad to hear there's another book coming. I guess where and what you know him from would influence how interested you were in which part of Coles' story. I'd never heard of the Communards.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
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