‘Walking’ memoir on tap at Winslow book shop
Published 10:30 am Thursday, November 15, 2018
Seattle-based author Beth Jusino will visit Eagle Harbor Book Company to discuss her new book, “Walking to the End of the World: A Thousand Miles on the Camino de Santiago,” an engaging memoir about letting go and living at a human pace while walking 1,000 miles across Europe on a 900-year-old trail at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15.
In April 2015, Beth and Eric Jusino, laden with backpacks and nerve, walked out of a cathedral in the historic village of Le Puy, France, down a cobblestone street, and turned west.
Seventy-nine days, 1,000 miles, two countries, two mountain ranges, and three pairs of shoes later, they reached the Atlantic Ocean.
More than 2 million pilgrims have walked the Way of Saint James, a long-distance hiking trail familiar to most Americans by its Spanish name, the Camino de Santiago. Each pilgrim has their own reason for undertaking the journey.
For the Jusinos, it was about taking a break from the relentless pace of modern life and getting away from all their electronic devices. And how hard could it be, Beth reasoned, to walk 12 or 15 miles a day, especially with the promise of real beds and local wine every night? Simple.
It turned out to be harder than she thought.
Beth is not an athlete, not into extreme adventures, and, she insists, not a risk-taker. She didn’t speak a word of French when she set out, and her Spanish was atrocious.
But she can tell a story.
In “Walking to the End of the World” she shares, with wry humor and infectious enthusiasm, the joys and travails of undertaking such a journey. She evocatively describes the terrain and the route’s history, her fellow pilgrims, and the villages passed, and the unexpected challenges and charms of the experience.
The story is also about the assurance that an outdoor-based, boundary-stretching adventure is accessible to even the most unlikely of us.
“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 10th and 11th centuries, paths that continue to inspire and reveal surprises to us today.
Visit www.eagleharborbooks.com to learn more.
Jusino is an award-winning writer, editor, and book publishing consultant in Seattle. She’s the author of “The Author’s Guide to Marketing,” and she has ghostwritten or collaborated on half a dozen additional titles. She is a member of the Northwest Independent Editors Guild, a regular speaker for Seattle Public Library’s #SeattleWrites workshops and Sno-Isles Library’s #WriteNow program, and has taught at dozens of additional writers’ conferences and book festivals across the country.
