Huntsville Public Library

Huntsville Reads 2008, the annual series of author events sponsored by the Friends of the Huntsville Public Library, welcomes Robert Ward, author of All the Good Pilgrims; Tales of the Camino de Santiago, on Saturday, May 3 at 2 p.m. in the library meeting room, 7 Minerva Street East. Admission is by donation and all are welcome.

The Camino is an ancient pilgrimage route, known in English as the Way of St. James. It is a collection of routes that begin all over Europe but have as their common destination Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. The main route is commonly known as the Camino Frances. It starts in St. Jean Pied de Port on the French side of the Pyrenees Mountain range and continues across northern Spain for 780 km to finish at Santiago de Compostela.

On his first journey along the Camino, Robert Ward fell in love with the pace, landscape, history, art and romance of this old pilgrimage path. In All the Good Pilgrims, Ward returns to walk the Camino for the fifth time. He thinks he knows what he is getting into, but as his many Camino journeys have taught him, the Camino never runs out of surprises. Each day brings new lessons, friendships, questions, memories, gifts and challenges, reminding Ward that it isn’t the pilgrim who walks the Camino, it’s the Camino that walks the pilgrim.

An engaging travel narrative, All the Good Pilgrims is a personal and insightful tour of the Camino de Santiago, as Ward takes his readers on a secular pilgrimage in which he reflects on his past journeys and contemplates the mysterious and enduring allure of this ancient, historic road.

When Robert Ward is not out walking he lives quietly in Toronto with his wife.

His writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and Queen’s Quarterly. He has lived in Japan and travelled widely in Europe and Asia.

This promises to be a lively, informative and entertaining presentation about the type of adventure many dream about, but few have the opportunity to accomplish.