On Pilgrimage, by Jennifer Lash (Bloomsbury, £6.99 in UK)

In 1986 Jennifer lash was told she had cancer. She was also told, after a painful operation, to get plenty of rest: instead she set out with a rucksack on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Here she retraces her steps, down through the great Catholic sites of France and into the riot of celebratory colour with which Spain celebrates the sanctity of St James. Lash plays the role of Doubting Thomas to perfection, but she is clearly moved by genuine goodness and finds it in unexpected places, from a Buddhist colony to the gypsies of the Camargue; for anyone wearied by contemporary Ireland's negative slant on Catholicism, this makes a refreshing read.