Book #18: Walking the Camino by Tony Kevin
Number of pages: 320
This is Tony Kevin's account of how he walked Spain's Camino de Santiago, from Granada to Santiago, at the age of 63. As he explains, walking the Camino is seen as a pilgrimage to many walkers, and he evens states that in a way, all walkers are pilgrims, trying to get to a specific place.
I enjoyed reading this book, as it not only provided a detailed account of his experiences, including the people he met, but the book went into detail about the history and politics of the areas he mentioned, primarily regarding the effects of the Spanish Inquisition and the Spanish Civil War. The only real issue with the political commentary was that it was easy to tell that this book was written over ten years ago, so the point when he started speculating on how Spain's 2008 election would go did feel out of date.
The author also went into great detail about his own background, including his Catholic faith, and one of the later chapters was full of anecdotes about his own family (my favourite was how his father would stand at the back of church, so he could sneak out for a milkshake).
There were occasional moments when this book felt a bit too long-winded; for example a bit where he talked a lot about the preparations he made and equipment he bought for his nine-week-long walk, but I found most of this book very engaging, and would definitely recommend it to others.
Next book: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne)