The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Signs of secondhand wear.

Since his retirement, sixty-two year old Harold Fry has done nothing but mow the lawn, and infuriate his wife by filling in the easy answers on her Telegraph crossword. Then an unexpected letter arrives from a woman he hasn't seen in twenty years who's dying of cancer. Harold realises that sending a reply isn't good enough. He is going to walk; all the way from Devon to Berwick on Tweed. So long as he keeps walking, his friend Queenie will keep living. It is an impulsive, terrifying, beautiful and irrational act of faith made by a man who has spent most of his life in a chair. Harold Fry's epic and unplanned journey north will cover over 500 miles of ever-changing English landscape. He will meet some good people, and some not good ones; he will briefly become a national celebrity, and he will almost lose his way altogether. But it is his awakened faith in the power of one human being to help another that is the heart of the book. As he confronts the mistakes and losses of his past, and the tragic secret at the heart of his marriage, Harold's inner journey will prove as transformative as his physical one. Left behind, Harold's wife, Maureen, will also go on a journey. And what has begun as a story about two wasted lives becomes a celebration of a man on his two feet, and the power of connecting...