Books

[Peter Rennie]

I've got to admit a slight addiction... to reading books about people's experiences on the Camino. My kindle is showing me 16 and rising. So what is your favourite Camino book and why?

 

[jefferyonthecamino]

Codex Calixtinus

 

[xin loi]

What the psychic told the pilgrim

 

[camino07]

Just reading an excellent one Memoirs of a Pilgrim,Footprints on the Road to Santiago by Brad Kyle

 

[JenD]

Hi! I also have an addiction to reading about the Camino. It gets me psyched about my camino next year. This week I finished Women of the Way written a few years ago. The 2015 Brierly guide has been shipped and I should get it in the next day or two. Looking forward to reading it.

Blessings and buen camino!

 

[El Gallo]

I've got to admit a slight addiction... to reading books about people's experiences on the Camino. My kindle is showing me 16 and rising. So what is your favourite Camino book and why?

My favorite so far is, "In Movement There Is Peace" by Elaine Orabona Foster & Joseph Wilbred Foster III. It is an excellent read and very well written. This couple walked the camino and related their experiences on the trail to their experiences in life. They each write a portion of each chapter, offering and comparing their points of view. I found it interesting how two people walking the same trail had such different perspectives on their walk. Life can be that way.
Like a good movie one really enjoyed, this is one I will read again.

 

[scruffy1]

"Roads to Santiago" by Gees Nooteboom and "Paris to the Pyrenees" by David Downe

 

[Anemone del Camino]

Immortelle randonnée by Jean-Christophe Rufin - for the quality of the language.

 

[Sheesh]

"All the Good Pilgrims" by Robert Ward.

 

[Karen Davies]

'Not without my Donkey'...for its humor.

 

[JennyH94]

Hi Peter -

My favourite Camino book is "The Year We Seized The Day" by Colin Bowles and Elizabeth Best. Colin and Eli are two Australian authors who met at a writers' festival around 10 years ago now. They decided to walk the Camino with NO TRAINING ! The book was in parts hilarious, in parts very poignant - they were so open and honest and something was disclosed in the book that was such a shock and so sad to read - it stays with me to this day. I read the book in 2011 after I'd been dreaming about the Camino for many years and it was this book that made me "seize the day" and turn my Camino dream into a reality, which I did in 2012. Here's an excerpt from the book, which will entertain you and also make you wince! ...

It was written on Day 10 by Colin, when they walked from Najera to Santo Domingo.

The Five Stages of a Camino Blister

1. A hot spot appears, an angry mark somewhere on your feet. It is slightly sore and throbs when you take your boot off.

2. A small blister appears. It hurts a bit when you walk. When you take your boot off everyone tells you to burst it with a sterilized needle. It will feel better … you ignore them. What do they know?

3. The next day as you walk, you know what it is like to be the subject of the ‘Spanish Boot’, an instrument of torture used in the Spanish Inquisition, where the foot was placed in a steel boot and the boot was tightened by iron screws until it was the size of a toddler’s welly.

4. The blister bursts inside your boot and turns into a patch of raw flesh the size of a 50 cent piece. When you take off your boot, the skin, flesh and raw nerve endings stick to the woolly parts of your sock and are all removed together. You take off your sock and ring out the pus and the blood like a squeegee mop. Everyone asks you why you didn’t burst the blister with a pin.

5. The next day you find on your foot a suppurating wound the size of a bath mat. You cannot stand on your foot, even walking is agony. You still have another month to walk!

I have such a lot to thank Colin and Eli for - the Camino door was open before I read their book, but their book made me swing that door wide open and gave me the gift of beginning to really look at the world "through Camino eyes".

Cheers - Jenny

 

[scruffy1]

'Not without my Donkey'...for its humor.

I assume you mean "Travels with My Donkey: One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago" by Tim Moore very funny and convincing. The last thing any of us want to take along to Santiago is a donkey!

 

[Karen Davies]

I assume you mean "Travels with My Donkey: One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago" by Tim Moore very funny and convincing. The last thing any of us want to take along to Santiago is a donkey!

 

[Karen Davies]

Yes that's the one! Thanks for correcting me, I have read it twice so I should have remembered.

 

[CaminoCruiser]

I have to second Jenny's choice of "The Year We Siezed The Day". Brilliant book, I couldn't put it down. I've read quite a few but this is the standout for me. I also really enjoyed "What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim", "The Way, My Way" by Bill Bennett and "In Movement There Is Peace".

 

[Alan Pearce]

I enjoyed 'The Artists Journey" [aka "The Perfumed Pilgrim"] by Marcia Shaver, from Seattle. The pen-and-ink drawings are just exquisite. She tells the story of her Camino Frances in 2008, when she walked about a week behind me, and met some pilgrims that I had encountered.

I met Marcia in person in 2011 when we were both walking the VdlP, and again in Compostela last year after she completed the Portuguese route.

Alan

Be brave. Life is joyous.

 

[Peter Rennie]

My favorite so far is, "In Movement There Is Peace" by Elaine Orabona Foster & Joseph Wilbred Foster III. It is an excellent read and very well written. This couple walked the camino and related their experiences on the trail to their experiences in life. They each write a portion of each chapter, offering and comparing their points of view. I found it interesting how two people walking the same trail had such different perspectives on their walk. Life can be that way.
Like a good movie one really enjoyed, this is one I will read again.

That is a great recommendation! I just finished it. There are some real nuggets of wisdom in there. I think you guys are just feeding my addiction, but maybe that is what I was after... ;-)

 

[Sarah80]

Just finished: To the field of Stars - Kevin Codd- downloading these recommendations and looking for more so resurrecting the thread!

Any more recommendations.

 

[EBird]

I've only read one, Walking in a Relaxed Manner" by Joyce Rupp. She's a nun who went on Camino with a friend. Each chapter is kind of an essay on a different aspect of the camino. It is very thoughtful and meditative, with some humor tossed in for flavor. I would definitely recommend it.

Elizabeth

 

[Phoenix]

I have to second Jenny's choice of "The Year We Siezed The Day". Brilliant book, I couldn't put it down. I've read quite a few but this is the standout for me. I also really enjoyed "What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim", "The Way, My Way" by Bill Bennett and "In Movement There Is Peace".

I thought the Bill Bennett book was good, especially when he would share his curmudgeonly humor (e.g., what he would say to others vs what he was really thinking).

 

[gerardcarey]

Jack Hitt's "Off The Road. A Modern-Day Walk Down the Pilgrim's Route into Spain."
Well written.
Well researched historical info slotted into and around the narrative.
One of the motivating factors that assisted in the creation of the movie "The Way".

 

[Frank66]

I've got to admit a slight addiction... to reading books about people's experiences on the Camino. My kindle is showing me 16 and rising. So what is your favourite Camino book and why?

If you want to read a book that, as well as providing some of the history of the Camino but still has you laughing out loud; pick up 'Spanish Steps (Travels with My Donkey' by Tim Moore. Thoroughly recommended. Have read it twice (pre-Camino), and will revisit it again now I have returned from my Camino from SJPP to Santiago.

 

[SabsP]

http://www.debezigebij.nl/boeken/pelgrim-of-niet/
A beautiful graphic novel from Belgian Judith Van Istendael who walked the Frances and made some lovely drawings.

 

[camino07]

Just bought a new book today The Santiago Pilgrimage by Jean-Christophe Rufin. About his Camino del Norte
Can't wait to read it.

 

[Wokabaut_Meri]

Grandma's on the Camino: Reflections on a 48 day Pilgrimage Walk to Santiago by Mary O'Hara Wyman. I loved this book! So wonderful on so many levels - a 70 year old grandmother fulfils a long held dream to walk this pilgrimage on her own. The book is dedicated to the author's then 5 year old granddaughter to whom, each evening, she writes a postcard. The postcard illustrations and comments are humorous and delightful and head each daily entry followed by her own journal description of the day. Then there is a reflection added on her return home.

Reading this book made me laugh and gave me a joyful 3 way viewpoint of the Camino.