Camino books
best books to read about the camino de santiago
This is a list of some of the best books available to motivate you about hiking the Camino de Santiago. Some of these books will simply share a story and others will give you more detail about a particular route. You will find that you will want to learn more about other pilgrims while actually walking the Camino...why not learn about pilgrims that came before you. Everyone has their own Camino...so learning about others will only help your experience to be more powerful.
The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit
The riveting odyssey began with a pair of anonymous handwritten letters imploring Shirley to make a difficult pilgrimage along the Santiago de Compostela Camino in Spain. For Shirley, the Camino was both an intense spiritual and physical challenge. A woman in her sixth decade completing such a grueling trip on foot in thirty days at twenty miles per day was nothing short of remarkable. But even more astounding was the route she took spiritually: back thousands of years, through past lives to the very origin of the universe.
Burden Stone: A Novel on the Camino de Santiago
The story of a fired and disillusioned Christian radio couple who set off to walk a 500-mile pilgrimage across Spain.Chris and Emilee Danielson have just lost their jobs as morning hosts, apparently for the crime of being on the wrong side of forty, and no other stations are returning calls. After a chance encounter with a Marine-turned-Catholic priest, they decide to walk the world-famous Camino de Santiago.
Blanket of Stars
An unlikely pilgrim battles agoraphobia to reclaim life beyond the sofa. The 800-kilometer journey along the Camino Frances provides a scenic backdrop to ponder midlife crisis and chronic illness, an empty nest and marital discord, military service and post traumatic stress, rage and grief, heartbreak and fear - And the way forward.
The Way of the Cross and Struggle for Holiness
The Way of the Cross follows a young pilgrim walking along the Camino de Santiago as he carried a large wooden cross 550 miles in Northern Spain. He learned about humility, pain, suffering, adventure, compassion and joy through encounters with pilgrims from over 40 different countries. The journey taught him to trust in the Lord, and revealed the lives the Lord can impact through the people that answer his call. Miracles surrounded the cross, but he was completely oblivious to what was happening around him. All the while, evil attacked, attempting to stray him from the true path.
I'm Off Then
Overweight, overworked, and physically unfit, Kerkeling was an unlikely candidate to make the arduous pilgrimage across the French Alps to the Spanish Shrine of St. James, a 1,200-year-old journey undertaken by nearly 100,000 people every year. But that didn’t stop him from getting off the couch and walking. Along the way, lonely and searching for meaning, he began the journal that turned into this utterly frank, engaging book. Simply by struggling with his physical limitations and the rigors of long-distance walking, he discovered a deep sense of peace that transformed his life and allowed him to forgive himself, and others, more readily. He learned something every day, and he took to finishing each entry with his daily lessons.
Walking to the End of the World
Walking to the End of the World is a warm-hearted and engaging story about an average couple going on an adventure together, tracing ancient paths first created in the tenth and eleventh centuries, paths that continue to inspire and reveal surprises to us today in the twenty-first.
The Walk of a Lifetime
For two decades, Russ Eanes dreamed of walking 500 miles of the Camino de Santiago. At age 61, not old enough to retire, but old enough to know that it was time to make a change, he left his job as a publisher and embarking on a year of discovery, realized that decades' old dream.
Great camino Movies
A father heads overseas to recover the body of his estranged son who died while traveling the "El Camino de Santiago" from France to Spain. As he mourns his son, he finds himself on an unexpected journey picking up where his son left off.
About the Book list curator
Caleb has hiked the entire Camino Frances in the fall of 2016 and has done many wilderness hikes along the Appalachian Trail, Superior Hiking Trail, Machu Pichu, and other smaller week-long treks. After completing his journey on the French route, he wrote a book about his experience carrying a wooden cross the entire way.
Since writing his own book, he loves to read about others who have experienced their own beautiful journey.
This list includes both motivational stories and educational resources!
