Happy Early May Bank Holiday for Anglophiles and walkers!

Early May Bank Holiday, which falls on May 2nd this year, kicks off the start of the summer season in England.  Timed to coincide with the more traditional May Day, it is a day for Britons to head outdoors.  To help you celebrate vicariously, we offer three books about walking in England.  The first is Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling, a travelogue along what the author dubs the Bryson Line, the longest distance between any two points in Britain.  If this book doesn’t make you want to book a flight to England and start breaking in your walking shoes, nothing will.  The second book, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, is a novel whose main character believes he must walk 600 hundred miles to visit a woman he hasn’t seen in twenty years.  This first novel by Rachel Joyce won praise from critics for its messages of hope and redemption in an ordinary life.  The final book is by poet Simon Armitrage, who takes the reader along on his trek of the Pennine Way, one of England’s most well-known walks, in Walking Home: A Poet’s Journey.  On his way he gives a poetry reading every night in exchange for bed and breakfast.  If you’ve ever been tempted to undertake the Pennine Way or any of the classic English walks, you’ll want to read this one.