liralen's review against another edition
4.0
I've read a ridiculous number of books about the Camino de Santiago, but this was a new pilgrimage for me to read about—by which I mean an entirely ancient pilgrimage in Japan that takes pilgrims to 88 different temples over the course of 750 miles.
88 temples is a lot to try to cover (and make distinct) in one book, but Barach does an admirable job of it. The temples are numbered in bold throughout the book, letting the reader keep loose track without getting too caught up in each temple, and Barach keeps the drama in the book more or less in proportion to the drama of the walk (which is to say that he knows when he's more dramatic than the events).
I don't think I'll be trekking off to Japan anytime soon (I promised myself I'd stay in one country for a while), but this did re-pique my interest in pilgrimage routes. It's a nice, light introduction to the Shikoku route for sure.
88 temples is a lot to try to cover (and make distinct) in one book, but Barach does an admirable job of it. The temples are numbered in bold throughout the book, letting the reader keep loose track without getting too caught up in each temple, and Barach keeps the drama in the book more or less in proportion to the drama of the walk (which is to say that he knows when he's more dramatic than the events).
I don't think I'll be trekking off to Japan anytime soon (I promised myself I'd stay in one country for a while), but this did re-pique my interest in pilgrimage routes. It's a nice, light introduction to the Shikoku route for sure.
brandur's review
4.0
Thoroughly enjoyed this account of a guy hiking solo to every temple on Shikoku. Most travel adventure books are a mixed bag of mildly amusing anecdotes or situations that have been exaggerated to the point of fiction for dramatic effect, but Paul's narrative is light on that, and his quirky encounters are legitimately funny. There's enough books about travel in Japan that for all intents and purpose they're their own genre at this point, and if that's the case, this is one of the best I've read therein.
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