Lives of the Improbable Saints – Richard Coles
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Darton, Longman & Todd; UK ed. edition (17 Oct. 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0232529558
ISBN-13: 978-0232529555
I’ve always quite liked Richard Coles, and I find the lives of the early saints very interesting, so this should be exactly the book I’m looking for.
It’s not bad (and the Amazon price, as with most of my purchases, was considerably less than the postage so it was good value). However, there’s a lot of white space on the page and some of the illustrations are very large.
Given the choice I’d browse the net. I’ve always found this site to be sound on saints, though short on humour.
Richard Coles is a bit short on humour too, but when you’re a vicar and your target market is Christians I suppose you have to keep yourself under control. I could probably write a funnier book but the Church would might burn it and excommunicate me. Or, even worse, burn me and excommunicate the book.
It’s been one of my stand-by books for NHS waiting rooms, and despite (or possibly because of) the gentle nature of the humour, was enough to pass the time and keep my mind off things.
Could be a lot worse, and it has the advantage that you can put it in your pocket, which isn’t the case with a website.
It’s good to change gear now and again, as life can’t be all Blandings and Wooster. Sometimes gentle humour and a simple story is all you need.
There’s a second volume, and one day I’ll probably read it, but I’m not going to rush out and buy it right now as I have other things to read.
Call it qualified approval – I wouldn’t turn down a Wodehouse to read Volume 2 of this.
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Great title! Nice stack of books.
I need to get reading to build up another stack for review. 🙂
I have learned many interesting things on this site. 🙂
I have too! I have to keep one step ahead of the readers. I’ve also learned a lot about the lives of other people from blogging – it is very educational. 🙂
My friend Norman is a priest and definitely not short of humour. He once gave a sermon with a wooden parrot on his shoulder
🙂 Sounds good. I think in the case of this book, the humour has been turned down a notch as it would be easy to cause offence by misjudging it. If you have time I’d love to know why he needed a parrot on his shoulder.
I don’t remember why he needed it – I’m sure he had a good excuse 🙂
Yes, I’m sure he did. 🙂
You could put it in your pocket if you were reading on a phone… Wouldn’t give the same pleasure, in my experience, though.
I’ve only just got used to reading on Kindle. 🙂