Martin Wroe - LifeLines: Notes on Life and Love, Faith and Doubt

Malcolm Doney grew up under the flight path for Heathrow Airport. He studied Fine Art at Saint Martins School of Art now Central Saint Martins UAL before pursuing a career in journalism, advertising and broadcasting. He has written ten books, including, with his wife Meryl, Who Made Me?, a sex guide for seven year olds. They road-tested the book and have two children. He is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 2s Pause forThought, and Radio 4s Something Understood. He lives in a village on the Suffolk coast where he keeps sheep and chickens, and is a volunteer priest in his parish church, sometimes joined by his horse, Neville.

Martin Wroe travelled to Wales in the womb of his mother because his father wanted him to be born Welsh. He is married to Meg, a painter, and together they have been raised by three children. He got into journalism while studying theology and ended up on the staff of the Independent and later the Observer. He has had longtime collaborations with an arts festival called Greenbelt, a human rights NGO called the Amos Trust and a band called U2. He is a sometime contributor to BBC Radio 4s Thought for the Day and volunteers as a priest in the Church of England, in North London. He was late to understand that religions are poems and tries to write one most days.

Praise for Lifelines

A great guide full of clear, simple and useful wisdom on how to live and lovely reminders of what we too often forget.

Matt Haig

Bestselling author of The Humans and

How To Stop Time

This book feels like balm to my weary heart. Its beautiful, wise, and, maybe most importantly, playful. The photos and essays make me think and make me smile. The authors know how to meet people where they are. Now my plan is to randomly pick a page every morning and see what challenges the universe is laying at my feet.

Bren Brown

Research professor and author of the New York

Times #1 bestseller Braving the Wilderness

Lifelines is about those things in life we cannot see, that might change how we view the things we can. A book of faith for those wary of religion. Sacred text for the more earthy reader.

Bono

I really like this very fine book, with its wonderful combination of hard-won wisdom, creative images and memorable quotes. Makes me think it will find a lot of readers and a lot of YES.

Richard Rohr

OFM, Franciscan, writer and speaker

A handbook for those searching for meaning and reflecting on their place in the world. Totally accessible yet unafraid to handle the toughest of questions and topics, the book is visually beautiful. This book can be accessed by anyone and can be opened at any point and a pearl of wisdom found, dive in and submerge yourself or merely dip your toe.

Rev. Kate Bottley

BBC Radio 2 presenter and Gogglebox vicar

I love this book! For its inclusivity and directness. For taking religion by the horns. For mining wisdom from poetry, song, art, film, philosophy, history and theology, celebrating the convergence of ideas on how to live an inspired and inspiring life. For its bold illustrations and quotations. For its capacity to imagine a better world. For anyone who thinks Love is a verb and The best things in life are not things.

Patience Agbabi

Spoken word poet and author of Telling Tales

A wonderfully rich collection of insightful, inspiring and humorous reflections, and visually stunning too. Like a bag of Opal Fruits, its hard to choose just one page and put it down. You can dip in, but then the next page, and the next, offers more enticing, juicy, thought-provoking stuff.

Nick Park

Oscar-winning director and creator of

Wallace and Gromit

This book is equal parts challenging, profound and generous. It does not judge or condescend but instead talks to us with the ease and charm of an old friend. It demonstrates the rigour of hope and how we may find it in small ways. It manages to be breathtakingly bold in scope and still incredibly readable. There is much insight within these pages that I hope to return to again and again.

Vanessa Kisuule,

Poet, performer and Bristol City Poet 2018 2022

A book of calm, humane and good-humoured meditations, each like a small pool to be dipped into briefly for a rinse and a rest and a steadying of the nerves for the onward journey.

Tim Winton

Novelist, twice shortlisted for the Booker

This edition first published in 2018

Unbound
6th Floor Mutual House, 70 Conduit Street, London W1S 2GF

www.unbound.com

All rights reserved

Malcolm Doney and Martin Wroe, 2018

The right of Malcolm Doney and Martin Wroe to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material reproduced herein, the publisher would like to apologise for any omissions and will be pleased to incorporate missing acknowledgments in any further editions.

Designed by Simon Gunn

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78352-627-7 (trade hbk)
ISBN 978-1-78352-629-1 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-78352-628-4 (limited edition)

Printed in Barcelona by Novoprint

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

For

Ellie, Evan, Grace, Lewis and Wes Over to you

Dear Reader,

The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded directly by readers through a new website: Unbound. Unbound is the creation of three writers. We started the company because we believed there had to be a better deal for both writers and readers. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly with readers. If enough of you support the book by pledging for it in advance, we produce a beautifully bound special subscribers edition and distribute a regular edition and ebook wherever books are sold, in shops and online.

This new way of publishing is actually a very old idea (Samuel Johnson funded his dictionary this way). Were just using the internet to build each writer a network of patrons. At the back of this book, youll find the names of all the people who made it happen.

Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy, and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too half the profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.

If youre not yet a subscriber, we hope that youll want to join our publishing revolution and have your name listed in one of our books in the future. To get you started, here is a 5 discount on your first pledge. Just visit unbound.com, make your pledge and type Lifelines5 in the promo code box when you check out.

Thank you for your support,

Dan, Justin and John
Founders, Unbound