Touching Cloth, Fergus ButlerGallie
Touching Cloth, Fergus ButlerGallie
List: $15.75 | Sale: $11.03
Club: $7.87

Touching Cloth
Confessions and communions of a young priest

Author: Fergus Butler-Gallie

Narrator: Fergus Butler-Gallie

Unabridged: 5 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/23/2023

Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin.

A laugh-out-loud memoir of becoming a 21st-century priest, Touching Cloth is also a love letter to the Prayer Book, Liverpool, lager, funerals, homemade lemon curd, and, above all, to what the Church of England can be at its best.

The very word 'reverend' inspires solemnity. To be a priest is to dedicate one's life to quiet prayer and spiritual contemplation. Isn't it?

Fergus Butler-Gallie reveals what it's like to become a priest in the twenty-first century. Find out why black really is slimming, how to keep a straight face when someone is inadvertently hot-boxing a funeral, and which royal-themed biscuit tin can best contain a very loud personal alarm that no one knows how to switch off. Spot a sweet old lady trying to pay for a taxi with coinage from fascist Spain? Congratulations, shepherd, she's your problem now.

Behind the daily scrapes is an all-too-human love letter to the Church of England, and the amazing variety of people who manage to keep it going, providing a listening ear, company and community at a time when so many people desperately need it, as well as a reflection on what it means to follow a spiritual path amid the chaos of the modern world.

©2023 Fergus Butler-Gallie (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Reviews

Goodreads review by Stephen on August 07, 2023

was funny in parts but overall not my type of book......more

Goodreads review by Willo on July 12, 2024

Sadly doesn't live up to its splendid title.......more

Goodreads review by Ben on August 17, 2023

An interesting read with some deep insight and some hilarious episodes, but unfortunately interspersed with a lot more material that is informative but not as interesting or as funny as the author thinks. He does give a good description of the typical life of a low-ranking halfway-up-the-candle cler......more

Goodreads review by Karin on October 20, 2024

An easy read with some amusing anecdotes and an insight into the church year from the point of view of a newly ordained priest. It was a bit uneven, some parts I really enjoyed while others fell a bit flat.......more

Goodreads review by John on May 09, 2024

This is a very good book but, coming to it as a theologian, it didn't answer the questions I wanted it to. To be fair, it probably wasn't written for the likes of me. I am a Roman Catholic and, as a left footer, I'm not quite in touch with the culture of the CofE. I think this was where my unanswere......more

Quotes

A witty and adept guide to the foibles of the well-intentioned and all too human figures who follow holy orders... Touching Cloth can be compared to Adam Kay's This Is Going to Hurt and the writings of the Secret Barrister... there is a warmth and wit here that recalls everyone from Wodehouse to that other godly humorist GK Chesterton. Observer

I may be a non-believer, but I laughed my way through this warm and witty book, which made me admire the irreverent reverend Fergus Butler-Gaillie even more than I already did. It is so engagingly written, and could sit deservingly in the tradition of Monica Dickens's tales of muddling amusingly through in unusual jobs where one might not be considered "a natural" (very high praise!). It's funny, fascinating, and gorgeously humane.

Funny and touching in equal measure, the diary of a priest that ranges from slapstick to the hauntingly profound.

Touching Cloth is a delight - a masterclass in the way pleasure, laughter and even God can be found in the most mundane moments of daily life.

A warm-hearted and frequently hilarious insight into the daily life of the clergy that won over this inveterate atheist.

Irreverent and hilarious... The pitfalls of human physicality form the essence of the book's comedy... What he wants to remind us, I think, is how far from being perfect all who might aspire to being saints are. The Times

If Butler-Gallie's entertaining book is anything to go by, [clerical life is summed up by] moments of great solemnity very often punctuated by uproarious mirth. Daily Mail

A rich store of anecdotes, both sacred and profane... Whatever his failure to progress up the hierarchy of the Church, he has an established place as one of its most acute and amusing chroniclers. Spectator

Searingly honest.. Butler-Gallie is the priest you want in your parish. i newspaper

Butler-Gallie loves the Church of England, even with its foibles, loves being a priest, and especially loves the ordinary people there. It is a book of humour, but also of deep humanity.... Great clowns give us amusement, but also have a quality of sadness and great depth. This book has that great duality. Church Times

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List