The memoir of popular BBC Radio 4 SATURDAY LIVE presenter, the Reverend Richard Coles.
The Reverend Richard Coles is a parish priest in Northamptonshire and a regular host of BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live. He is also the only vicar in Britain to have had a number 1 hit single: the Communards' 'Don't Leave Me This Way' topped the charts for four weeks and was the biggest-selling single of its year. Fathomless Riches is his remarkable memoir in which he divulges with searing honesty and intimacy his pilgrimage from a rock-and-roll life of sex and drugs to a life devoted to God and Christianity.
Music is where it began. Richard Coles was head chorister at school, and later discovered a love of saxophone together with the magic of Jimmy Somerville's voice. Against a backdrop of intense sexual and political awakening, the Communards were formed, and Richard Coles's life as a rock star began.
Fathomless Riches - a phrase characteristic of St Paul and his followers - is a deeply personal and illuminating account of a transformation from hedonistic self-abandonment to 'the moment that changed everything'. Funny, warm, witty and wise, it is a memoir which has the power to shock as well as to console. It will be hailed as one of the most unusual and readable life stories of recent times.
The Reverend Richard Coles is the presenter of Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4. He is also the only vicar in Britain to have had a number-one hit single. He read Theology at King's College London, and after ordination worked as a curate in Lincolnshire and subsequently at St Paul's Church in Knightsbridge, London. He is the author of Lives of the Improbable Saints and two memoirs, the bestselling Fathomless Riches and Bringing in the Sheaves. He lives in his parish of Finedon, Northamptonshire. www.richardcoles.com www.twitter.com/RevRichardColes
Title: Fathomless Riches: Or How I Went From Pop to Pulpit
Author: Coles, Reverend Richard
ISBN: 9780297870302
Binding:
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
Publication Date: 2014-10-16
Number of Pages: 288
Weight: 0.5717 kg
One of the most immensely readable - and redeemable - memoirs of the year. His book is an engaging account of eccentricity, curiosity and a profound spiritual journey. I give it a screamingly camp, happy-clappy thumbs up -- Helen Davies * SUNDAY TIMES *
Sex, drugs, death, religion, more sex, many more deaths - it has got it all. Like a sparkling old-style chasuble worn by a Spanish priest, it is difficult to ignore -- Chris Bryant * GUARDIAN *
He writes with charm and erudition and his take on 1980s Britain is fascinating -- Virginia Blackburn * SUNDAY EXPRESS *
Beautifully written, disarmingly frank and utterly charming -- James Delingpole * MAIL ON SUNDAY *
Richard's devastating honesty makes his journey from gay pop-star to celibate parish priest comprehensible even to atheists -- Linda Grant
[O]ne of the most readable memoirs of 2014 -- Helen Davies * SUNDAY TIMES - Books of the Year 2014 *
It is a tale of redemption and of a sinner come to transformation... The Church of England is all the better for having such a priest within its ranks. -- Stephen Bates * LITERARY REVIEW *
Full of wit and humour about finding god, and Jimmy Somerville. -- Katy Guest * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY - Books of the Year 2014 *
Richard Coles has achieved a rare thing in writing an astonishingly honest autobiography, which, alongside the sex and drugs, presents Christian faith in a way that will surely be invitingly intriguing to an audience well beyond the church. ..An immensely enjoyable memoir, whether a reader's primary interest is the music industry, the impact of AIDS, the Church of England, or a wonderfully Anglican combination of all three. -- The Revd Christopher Landau * CHURCH TIMES *
Witty, honest and - no pun intended - irreverent, it is very much a personal and at times hearbreaking account about what it was like ot be day during the period with a bit of pop-world gossip thrown in as well. Readable to say the least. * MORNING STAR *
