books

by all means take a paperback, they weigh next to nothing after all, tho even a compulsive reader like myself finds little time to read on the camino

the pillars of the earth (ken follett) seemed to be a popular choice when i was walking

as for guidebooks: my first camino i walked with one, the second without
the waymarks, the hospitaleros, and the pamphlets handed out by the local tourist authority have all the information you need
plus the baristas, chat up the baristas, they know everything that's going on
and should the albergue be full and you need a cheap bed for the night, stop any random old lady on the street, i guarantee you she'll know una vieja viuda necesitosa who rents rooms on the sly

good grief! i just checked amazon: they have 375 listings for camino de santiago. i remember when it was just the jack hitt book (how i drank and partied my way across spain) and then the lee hoinacki book (how i pissed and moaned my way across spain)

anyway, check out roads to santiago by cees nooteboom-not a guidebook, more of a cultural history

I have 3 that I have seen recommended here. The Confraternity (csj.org) sells booklets on each of the different paths. Also recommended are the books by Bethan Davies & Brierly. The Confraternity puts out a new booklet each year, based on what they hear back from the previous year's pilgrims & both the Davies & the Brierly books are recent editions. I just got these 2 from Amazon, so they should be on the search string that you put in.

Buen Camino!
dg

reading book

my suggestion, don't take one, by the time you get settled in a albergue, do laundry, eat , site see and visit, i found no time to read. i am glad i didn't have the extra weight. i took a magazine on the plane. i left it in st.j-p-d=port.
dawn