The writer and broadcaster Chris Bowlby is intereviewed this week about his book No Complacency: Life, death, football, and the cathedral on the hill.

The book is published by Herne Books and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £18.

From the publisher’s description: “When Chris Bowlby’s son Ewan was diagnosed with a brain tumour aged 17, you might have thought football would be the last thing on their minds. But in the following decade in which Ewan faced growing threats to his health, the love of football they shared seemed to grow in importance. It was a kind of thread, defiantly holding some kind of normal life together, and a passion that prompted fascinating discussion about why a sport could matter so much.

“After Ewan’s death from cancer in 2022 [Gazette, 3 March 2023], Chris faced a choice. He wondered whether his lifelong love of football might fade. But gradually he found a way of including grief in a return to life, all of life. He understood as never before how much football had meant to him, how it had shaped the world he had lived through, and how it could now help him cope. Yet there was tension too. Was he now more aware of how the modern game might be leaving its humanity behind?

“This book explores that experience, ranging from top-level football to community clubs, the intensely local to the global, the women’s game as well as the men’s. It has football at its heart but is about much more than sport.”

Ewan Bowlby’s book, Borrowed Stories: Facing cancer with culture — from Breaking Bad to The Divine Comedy, was published last year (Features, 12 September 2025).

https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781917362115/borrowed-stories

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/12-september/features/features/facing-cancer-with-culture-end-of-life-solace-in-storytelling

Chris Bowlby has written the Viewpoint column in the 19 June edition of the Church Times. https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2026/19-june/comment/columnists/viewpoint-with-chris-bowlby-football-and-religion-can-benefit-each-other

Chris Bowlby was for many years on the staff of the BBC, where he made documentaries on a wide range of subjects including payday lending and football, profiles of leading football club owners, and the history of the Berlin venue for the 2006 World Cup final. He has also been a regular columnist for the BBC History magazine, a foreign correspondent for the Independent, and writes obituaries for The Times.

Music for the podcast is by Twisterium.

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Peter Stanford returns to the podcast to talk about his new book, Gaudí: God’s architect, published to mark the centenary of Antoni Gaudí’s death. The book is published Hodder & Stoughton at £30 (Church Times Bookshop £24). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781399811811/gaud%C3%AD?vc=CT705

The writer Tobias Jones says: “In daring to trace the complex connections between Gaudí’s religious faith and his famous buildings, this is an enriching, nuanced book.”

Read an extract from the book in the 5 June edition of the Church Times: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2026/5-june/features/features/antoni-gaud%C3%AD-architect-of-his-own-destiny

Peter Stanford is an award-winning writer, journalist, broadcaster, and campaigner. He is a former editor of The Catholic Herald. His previous books include If These Stones Could Talk (Podcast. 14 October 2021; Books, 26 November 2021) and Martin Luther (Podcast, 13 April 2017; Books, 28 July 2017).

Music for the podcast is by Twisterium.

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On this edition of the podcast, Canon Angela Tilby talks about her new book, Good Faith: Why England needs its Church (Hodder & Stoughton), which is available to buy at the Church House Bookshop. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781399801638/good-faith

Canon Tilby is Canon Emeritus of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and a Canon of Honour at Portsmouth Cathedral. She is also a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, as well as a weekly columnist for the Church Times.

The book “seeks to reclaim what is unique about the Church of England — a church which claims to be ‘part of’ the one, holy Catholic Church — and its role in our national life, and how a deeper understanding of Christian faith can still be passed on through it to the English people”.

Picture credit: KT Bruce

Music for the podcast is by Twisterium.

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the singer, composer, and conductor Joanna Forbes L’Estrange is interviewed by Madeleine Davies.

Joanna Forbes L’Estrange talks about how she developed a love of singing as a child, and why she believes that singing in primary schools is “absolutely vital”. This is especially needed in state schools, she says, where there is often less of a culture of singing than in independent schools.

“There have been lots of musicians over the decades who have recognised this need, but still somehow there needs to be a seismic culture shift,” she says. “It’s somehow convincing the people who make the big decisions that singing provision in schools is absolutely vital.”

She delivered a keynote speech this month at the annual conference of the Choir Schools’ Association. Read more in Madeleine’s report in the Church Times this week. https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2026/15-may/news/uk/state-schools-need-support-to-improve-music-provision-choir-schools-association-hears

https://www.joannaforbeslestrange.com/

Tickets are on sale for the Church Times Festival of Faith and Music, on 10 October at Southwark Cathedral: https://faithandmusic.hymnsam.co.uk/buy-tickets/

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Tributes have been paid to Richard Harries, a former Bishop of Oxford , long-serving peer, and prolific writer, who died on 29 April at the age of 89. He was a frequent contributor to the Church Times.

In 2023, Lord Harries was interviewed on this podcast about his memoir, The Shaping of a Soul: A life taken by surprise (John Hunt) (Books, 6 April 2023). On this week’s podcast there’s another chance to hear the interview about his fascinating life.

In this week’s Church Times, an obituary of Lord Harries is published, as well as his last book review for the paper.

The Shaping of a Soul is available from the Church House Bookshop: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781803411620/shaping-of-a-soul-the

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2026/8-may/gazette/obituaries/obituary-the-rt-revd-the-lord-harries-of-pentregarth

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2026/8-may/books-arts/book-reviews/book-review-vermeer-a-life-lost-and-found-by-andrew-graham-dixon

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, Dr Lucy Sixsmith is interviewed about her new book, When the Music Fades: Power, surrender and the Soul Survivor generation.

In the book, she reflects on growing up as part of the Soul Survivor generation, including attending its festivals, and she grapples with the big questions that she and others have been left with in the wake of revelations about its founder, Mike Pilavachi.

In September 2023, an investigation by the Church of England’s safeguarding team concluded that Mr Pilavachi had exercised an abuse of power and spiritual abuse (News, 7 September 2023). The following year, a review by Fiona Scolding KC concluded that the abuse of power had been enabled by a wholesale failure of organisational culture at Soul Survivor (News, 4 October 2024).

The book goes beyond Soul Survivor to the wider culture of Charismatic Evangelicalism in Britain in the 1990s and 2000s. One of the books aims, she says, was to try to evoke this environment, “to put out into the world: this is what it was like, this is what a lot of us who are now 30- or 40-somethings experienced as teenagers.”

An extract from the book is published in this week’s edition of the Church Times.

Dr Sixsmith is in conversation with Madeleine Davies, senior writer at the Church Times.

When the Music Fades: Power, surrender and the Soul Survivor generation is published by Canterbury Press at £16.99 (Church Times Bookshop £13.59); 978-1-786-22615-0. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781786226150/when-the-music-fades?vc=CT201

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the Archbishop of Canterbury speaks to the editor, Sarah Meyrick. It is the Archbishop’s first interview since her enthronement last month.

Archbishop Mullally is asked about her hopes for her time in office. What will be distinctive about her archiepiscopate? What sort of leader will she seek to be? She also speaks about church growth, safeguarding, Living in Love and Faith, and her relationship with the Anglican Communion, among other topics.

“What I want to offer is a consistency: a calm, non-anxious leadership,” she says. “I see myself as a shepherd, as somebody who supports and provides pastoral care.”

Picture credit: BBC

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On this episode of the podcast, Malcolm Guite talks to Rachel Mann about his new book, Galahad and the Grail, part one of a planned four-volume poem sequence, Merlin’s Isle, a retelling of the tales of King Arthur.

In a review of the book in the Church Times, Dr Michael Wheeler describes Galahad and the Grail as “a poem of sacramental re-enchantment, grounded in the holy eucharist”.

Galahad and the Grail: Merlin’s Isle Volume 1 is published by Canterbury Press at £30 (Church Times Bookshop £27). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781786227126/galahad-and-the-grail?vc=CT727

The Revd Dr Malcolm Guite is a Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and writes the weekly Poet’s Corner column for the Church Times.

The Ven. Dr Rachel Mann, also a priest-poet, is the Archdeacon of Bolton and Salford, in the diocese of Manchester. Her second collection of poetry, Eleanor Among the Saints (Carcanet), was shortlisted for the 2024 T. S. Eliot Prize (Books, 25 April 2025).

On this edition of the podcast, Peter Hitchens is interviewed by Church Times staff writer James Macintyre. Mr Hitchens is one of the most well-known — and well-travelled — columnists and commentators in Britain. He has worked in the journalism trade for almost 50 years, serving as a resident correspondent in Moscow, and in Washington DC, as well as an industrial correspondent and a political correspondent.

A practising Anglican and a “small-c” conservative, he is known as “controversial”: at once celebrated by his many admirers, and reviled by his opponents. Few people who have come across him have no opinion on him. He has a weekly column for The Mail on Sunday and also writes for the Daily Mail, among a range of other outlets. A regular broadcaster, his books include The Rage Against God, first published by Continuum in 2010.

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On this edition of the podcast, the Revd Dr Andrew Atherstone, Professor of Modern Anglicanism in the University of Oxford, is intereviewed about his biography of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which was published this week. The book, "Archbishop Sarah Mullally", draws on conversations with people who know her and archive material to tell the story of her childhood, her journey of faith, and her rapid rise through both the NHS and the Church of England.

Dr Atherstone also considers how her archiepiscopate might compare with that of Archbishop Welby’s, about whom he has also written a biography.

The book is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £22 (Church Times Bookshop £17.60); 978-1-3998-2878-9. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781399828789/archbishop-sarah-mullally?vc=CT320

An extract is due to be published in next week’s issue of the Church Times (27 March), along with coverage of her enthronement in Canterbury.

Dr Atherstone is interviewed by Ed Thornton, Associate Editor.

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader