The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground

The Singular Pilgrim is a riveting account of one woman's personal quest to find the root of belief among modern religious pilgrims. The intrepid Rosemary Mahoney undertakes six extraordinary journeys: visiting an Anglican shrine to Saint Mary in Walsingham, England; walking the five-hundred-mile Camino de Santiago in northern Spain; braving the icy bathwater at Lourdes; rowing alone across the Sea of Galilee to spend a night camped below the Golan Heights; viewing Varanasi, India’s holiest city, from a rubber raft on the Ganges; soldiering barefoot through the three-day penitential Catholic pilgrimage on Ireland’s Station Island. A fiercely observant traveler and an insightful writer, Mahoney offers a witty and provocative chronicle of her adventures.

"An affecting visit to the ancient, humbling act of pilgrimage." Kirkus Reviews

"She travels alone - all the better to accompany us, her readers, showering us with her gifts of observation and expression. And in the very tartness of her refusals to be taken in, she is far from what she calls 'oblivious to God.'" --Margaret Visser, author of The Way We Are, Rituals of Dinner, and The Geometry of Love

“A compelling and evocative memoir…Readers seeking small marvels, instead of life-changing miracles, will find this a provocative and illuminating armchair adventure.” Publishers Weekly