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A review by readerstephen86
Waiting for the Last Bus: Reflections on Life and Death by Richard Holloway
5.0
Summary - A life affirming book full of poigniancy, and barrel-aged wisdom that makes me yearn to talk more with the generations ahead of me.
A quietly radical book, which underlines the old coupling of age with wisdom. This is one of those meditatively mature books that draws on a long life to take stock, in a personal way that speaks louder than its lightly-written words to the biggest age-old themes of death-in-life, the meaning of life, and how human's deal with endings.
UK readers might be put in mind of Richard Coles (ex-Communards, now vicar-and-BBC broadcaster). It's unflinching in its handling of fatalism and mortality, peppered as it is with elergies for friends and loved ones that Holloway himself knew.
This book makes me nostalgic with yearning for conversations with elders. Where do we get to meet retirees in our everyday lives, when church has been wiped away, pubs and community centres either shuttered for good or segregated into ever-more-specifically-themed niches, and our lives drawn into narrow online forums or closed friendship groups? This book spoke to me, and post-lockdown I want to find voices like Richard's that I in turn can speak with.
A quietly radical book, which underlines the old coupling of age with wisdom. This is one of those meditatively mature books that draws on a long life to take stock, in a personal way that speaks louder than its lightly-written words to the biggest age-old themes of death-in-life, the meaning of life, and how human's deal with endings.
UK readers might be put in mind of Richard Coles (ex-Communards, now vicar-and-BBC broadcaster). It's unflinching in its handling of fatalism and mortality, peppered as it is with elergies for friends and loved ones that Holloway himself knew.
This book makes me nostalgic with yearning for conversations with elders. Where do we get to meet retirees in our everyday lives, when church has been wiped away, pubs and community centres either shuttered for good or segregated into ever-more-specifically-themed niches, and our lives drawn into narrow online forums or closed friendship groups? This book spoke to me, and post-lockdown I want to find voices like Richard's that I in turn can speak with.