Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul - Rated 
This was a very well written and thought provoking book. I really enjoyed it and so much want to meet a Father Joe!
More than the cover promises - Rated
I came across this book by accident: it had been left in the kitchen of a flat that I was moving into and, because I had nothing better to do, I began to read it. And I read and read and did not want to put it down. At some points I read with tears streaming down my face. This is one of the most honest and accessible modern spiritual autobiographies I've ever read.
Tony Hendera, most famous in the UK as a member of Spinal Tap and as co-creator of Spitting Image, charts his own spiritual life from a boy of 14 having an 'affair' with his catechist's wife through aspiring monk, apostate satirist, drug addict, womaniser and, eventually, devoted husband and father. He was guided, informed and unconditionally loved throughout this journey by Dom Jospeh Warrilow, a Benedictine monk who lived at the enclosed Benedictine abbey of Quarr on the Isle of Wight from 1926 until his death in the 1990s. Fr Joe radiates from the page, the author's deep and respectful love for him as string as Fr Joe's deep spiritual (although not, as we are comically told, physical) beauty.
This is a great book. The story of friendship and spirituality that is told is honest and profound. The author is blessed with great insight into his own character and that of Fr Joe. His great skill with the written word does justice to this powerful account of a monk who reached out from behind an enclosure and touched lives. I'm very grateful to the former inhabitant of my flat for giving me the opportunity to have read it.
Father Joe - The Man who saved my soul - Rated
I came upon this book quite by accident, and was interested by the range of reviewers on the dust-jacket. Having visited Quarr Abbey a number of times, I was immediately interested in the experiences of Tony Hendra, whose friendship with a Catholic Monk forms a backdrop to his, often turbulent, life. Hendra's prose is frequently beautiful; as one commentator observes, bordering on the mystical in places. His frank accounts of the state of his soul, and his interior battles are powerful, and moving, as many of the turmoils that he encounters will be recognised and empathised with by the reader. The book left me very moved, and as Stephen Fry commented, wanting more. Tony Hendra is to be congratulated, and thanked, for sharing Father Joe with his readers. I cannot praise the book highly enough.
Fascinating read - Rated
I dearly loved this book. It revealed a lot to me, stuffs which I have never experienced, but find enriching. Above all, I was taken into a journey to meet a man I would have loved to know in my life. I appreciated the writer's command of the English language. Other fun books to read are: The usurper and Other stories, The Kalahari Typing School for Men, Disciples of Fortune
Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul - Rated
This book in many ways articulates my own spiritual journey over the last 30 odd years and consequently I lived and breathed the pages where the author often spoke and met with Father Joe at Quarr Abbey. I, too, knew Father Joe from 1970 onwards though not as well as he - however, the reader doesn't have to have known Father Joe not to be moved by the sheer beauty and intensity of Tony Hendra's writing style. I'm not often emotionally moved these days, but this book certainly did it for me. Surely this publication will go down as a spiritual classic of the future. There is much we can learn about ourselves by reading it. Father Joe was probably the holiest man I am ever likely to met and Tony Hendra succeeds in his endeavours to convey that to the reader. This is one book I will read and read again.
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