The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

I read both of these books while I was vacationing in North Carolina, and thoroughly enjoyed both of them.

 The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce is a story of Harold’s walk from one end of England to the other, and the novel seems to move at the same deliberate pace of an older man walking along the lanes and back roads of a country he has barely noticed before, and examining is own past.  This accidental pilgrim takes the reader along on a journey that includes laughter, tears, sometimes frustration and some sentimentality.   This is a book about love and loss, about discovery and understanding.  

On the other hand, Mr. Penumbra’s Bookstore is a book about opposites, darkness and light, technology and tradition, modern and ancient, the real and the unreal.  The characters are well drawn, and the plot moves at a steady enough pace to keep the reader turning pages.  This ia a thoroughly enjoyable book.