Waiting for the Last Bus: Reflections on Life and Death, Paperback

Where do we go when we die? Or is there nowhere to go? Is death something we can do or is it just something that happens to us?

Now in his ninth decade, former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway has spent a lifetime at the bedsides of the dying, guiding countless men and women towards peaceful deaths. In Waiting for the Last Bus, he presents a positive, meditative and profound exploration of the many important lessons we can learn from death: facing up to the limitations of our bodies as they falter, reflecting on our failings, and forgiving ourselves and others.

But in a modern world increasingly wary of acknowledging mortality, Waiting for the Last Bus is also a stirring plea to reacquaint ourselves with death. Facing and welcoming death gives us the chance to think about not only the meaning of our own life, but of life itself; and can mean the difference between ordinary sorrow and unbearable regret at the end.

Richard Holloway was Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. He is an internationally renowned broadcaster and author of numerous books, including Leaving Alexandria, which won the PEN/Ackerley Prize 2013 and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2013, and A Little History of Religion (Yale University Press, 2016).