This book is an excellent introduction to what “walking the Camino” is all about.
I decided to order this book in 2020 – a few months after I knew I wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the offer I’d received to go on a Camino tour with Spanish Steps – a travel company specializing in Camino de Santiago tours.
(Companies like this – as well as the international travel magazine I worked for at the time – lost a lot of business due to COVID.)
The Way, My Way (a Camino memoir) turned out to be one of the best books I’ve ever read. It held my attention from beginning to end.
Humor, pathos, excellent imagery, interesting characters – the book had it all. And yet, it wasn’t fiction. It was a memoir based on notes the author took during his journey.
Bill Bennett (the book’s author) is an Australian filmmaker/producer who decided to challenge himself with this 500-mile walk through France and Spain in 2013. Along the way, he met people who surprised him in both good and bad ways. But the main things he learned were about himself.
In the Epilogue at the back of the book are several “lessons” he learned during his walk. Here are two of my favorites:
THE POWER OF INCREMENTS: “I learnt I could achieve big goals by taking small steps. A lot of small steps. But only if I didn’t give up until I’d reached my goal.”
MIRACLES ARE POSSIBLE: “I discovered I was able to overcome obstacles I didn’t think possible. And I saw miracles. My pain left me on the Meseta. My eyesight improved. But perhaps the greatest miracle of all is that I changed.”
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The book’s 4.6-star ranking on Amazon is based on almost 1,400 reviews. This review, posted in September 2024 by a reader in Australia, did a good job of describing it, I thought:
“I really enjoyed this read. The dry humour, the ability of the author to poke fun at himself whilst at the same time being quite reflective, gave his story a warmth and relatability. I also enjoyed reading the reflections at the end of each chapter. This was one of those books where I tried to slow down my reading once I realised I was getting toward the end. This is a re-read book.”
