书名：The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry 一个人的朝圣
难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数860L
作者：Rachel Joyce
出版社名称：Black Swan
出版时间：2013
语种：英文
ISBN：9780552778091
商品尺寸：13 x 1.2 x 19.8 cm
包装：平装
页数：384

这一年，我们都需要哈罗德安静而勇敢的陪伴。
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry《一个人的朝圣》是英国资深剧作家蕾秋·乔伊斯的小说处女作，2013年欧洲首席畅销小说，上市一年，仅英美德三国累计销量100万册！！感动38国，同名电影拍摄中。
推荐理由：
1.入围2012年布克文学奖；2013年春季英国有影响力“理查与茱蒂”读书俱乐部书单；
2.欧普拉读书俱乐部夏日选书、美国图书馆协会选书；2012年英国畅销新人小说；
3.《出版人周刊》《纽约时报》《泰晤士报》《嘉人》《今日美国》等各大媒体高评价推荐；
4.英文原版，原汁原味，配手绘黑白英式插图。
精彩书评
★这本小说用强有力的新声音讲述了充满英式趣味的独特故事，优雅，细腻，感人。
——布克文学奖入围语
★从遇见哈罗德的那一刻起，我再也不想离开他。——《泰晤士报》
★《一个人的朝圣》不仅关于爱，还关于日常生活的信念及万物之美，从哈罗德把一只脚放到另一只前面的微小动作开始。——《纽约时报》
★读完好几天，我几近哀悼般怀念着哈罗德安静而勇敢的陪伴。——《每日快报》
★《一个人的朝圣》让我们看见，即使是性格上的弱点也能带来振奋和救赎。——爱德华·史铁顿（BBC知名主持人）
★哈罗德的旅途让我们回过头面对自己的生命和挚爱的人。——北德广播文化
★很久没有读一本书读到凌晨……当一切似乎都已太迟时，哈罗德敞开自己伤痕累累的心，让世界走进来。我觉得他就是我自己。——台湾读者
★温柔优雅的迷人作品，充满英式的独特趣味，深刻且睿智地检视了爱与奉献的主题，安静的力量盘据心头，肯定会成为读书俱乐部的爱选书。——《书单》
★每次哈罗德起水泡或抽筋，我便跟着屏息担忧，甚至觉得好像只要我一页页翻下去，就能帮助他完成这项不可能的旅程。太精彩了！——作家海伦·西蒙森
When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else’s life.
Review
“The odyssey of a simple man, original, subtle and touching”.—Claire Tomalin
“From the moment I met Harold Fry, I didn’t want to leave him. Impossible to put down.”—Erica Wagner,The Times
“One of the sweetest, most delicately-written stories I’ve read in a long time. One man’s walk along the length of England to save the life of a dying woman. Each chapter describes a different encounter along the way, with a definite nod to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Philosophical, intriguing, and profoundly moving. ”—Richard Madeley, Foyles website
“Uplifting, funny and delicate”—Jon Stock,The Daily Telegraph
“At times almost unbearably moving. ”—Sunday Times
“A brilliant and charming novel: full of comic panache yet acute and poignant. ”—Spectator
“one of the most moving, uplifting, inspiring novels I’ve ever read”—Richard Madeley

哈罗德·弗莱，六十五岁，在啤酒厂干了四十来年销售代表后默默退休。他跟妻子住在英国乡间，生活平静，夫妻疏离，日复一日。
一天早晨，他收到一封信，来自二十年未见的老友奎妮。她患了癌症，写信告别。哈罗德写了回信，在寄出的路上，他由奎妮想到自己，越走越远，之后，他从英国西南一路走到东北，横跨整个英格兰。87天，627英里，只凭一个信念：只要他走，奎妮就会活下去。
这是哈罗德千里跋涉的故事。从他脚步迈开的那一刻起，与他六百多英里旅程并行的，是他穿越时光的另一场内心之旅。这趟旅程经过自我、走过现代社会百态、跨越时间和地理风景，他敞开自己伤痕累累的心，让世界走进来，让生命重新发光。
你才发现，哈罗德原来就是我们自己。
Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack of quotidian minutiae is a letter addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl from a woman he hasn’t seen or heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye.
Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. But then, as happens in the very best works of fiction, Harold has a chance encounter, one that convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. And thus begins the unlikely pilgrimage at the heart of Rachel Joyce’s remarkable debut. Harold Fry is determined to walk six hundred miles from Kingsbridge to the hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed because, he believes, as long as he walks, Queenie Hennessey will live.
Still in his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold embarks on his urgent quest across the countryside. Along the way he meets one fascinating character after another, each of whom unlocks his long-dormant spirit and sense of promise. Memories of his first dance with Maureen, his wedding day, his joy in fatherhood, come rushing back to him—allowing him to also reconcile the losses and the regrets. As for Maureen, she finds herself missing Harold for the first time in years.
And then there is the unfinished business with Queenie Hennessy.
A novel of unsentimental charm, humor, and profound insight into the thoughts and feelings we all bury deep within our hearts,The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fryintroduces Rachel Joyce as a wise—and utterly irresistible—storyteller.

蕾秋·乔伊斯（Rachel Joyce），英国BBC资深剧作家，《星期日泰晤士报》专栏作者，于2007年获得Tinniswood广播剧奖。她还在皇家莎士比亚剧团、皇家国家剧院担任主要角色。
乔伊斯于20年的舞台剧和电视职业生涯之后转向写作，2012年出版小说《一个人的朝圣》，该书入围2012年布克文学奖及英联邦书奖，目前已畅销38国。
Rachel Joyceis the author of the Sunday Times and international bestsellersThe Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry,Perfect,The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy,The Music Shop, and a collection of interlinked short stories,A Snow Garden & Other Stories. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frywas shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book prize and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Rachel was awarded the Specsavers National Book Awards “New Writer of the Year” in December 2012 and shortlisted for the “UK Author of the Year” 2014.
Rachel is also the award-winning writer of over thirty original afternoon plays and adaptations of the classics for BBC Radio 4, including all the Bronte novels. She moved to writing after a long career as an actor, performing leading roles for the RSC, the National Theatre and Cheek by Jowl.

The letter that would change everything arrived on a Tuesday. It was an ordinary morning in mid-April that smelled of clean washing and grass cuttings. Harold Fry sat at the breakfast table, freshly shaved, in a clean shirt and tie, with a slice of toast that he wasn’t eating. He gazed beyond the kitchen window at the clipped lawn, which was spiked in the middle by Maureen’s telescopic washing line, and trapped on all three sides by the neighbors’ stockade fencing.
“Harold!” called Maureen above the vacuum cleaner. “Post!”
He thought he might like to go out, but the only thing to do was mow the lawn and he had done that yesterday. The vacuum tumbled into silence, and his wife appeared, looking cross, with a letter. She sat opposite Harold.
Maureen was a slight woman with a cap of silver hair and a brisk walk. When they first met, nothing had pleased him more than to make her laugh. To watch her neat frame collapse into unruly happiness. “It’s for you,” she said. He didn’t know what she meant until she slid an envelope across the table, and stopped it just short of Harold’s elbow. They both looked at the letter as if they had never seen one before. It was pink. “The postmark says Berwick-upon-Tweed.”
He didn’t know anyone in Berwick. He didn’t know many people anywhere. “Maybe it’s a mistake.”
“I think not. They don’t get something like a postmark wrong.” She took toast from the rack. She liked it cold and crisp.
Harold studied the mysterious envelope. Its pink was not the color of the bathroom suite, or the matching towels and fluffed cover for the toilet seat. That was a vivid shade that made Harold feel he shouldn’t be there. But this was delicate. A Turkish Delight pink. His name and address were scribbled in ballpoint, the clumsy letters collapsing into one another as if a child had dashed them off in a hurry: Mr. H. Fry, 13 Fossebridge Road, Kingsbridge, South Hams. He didn’t recognize the handwriting.
“Well?” said Maureen, passing a knife. He held it to the corner of the envelope, and tugged it through the fold. “Careful,” she warned.
He could feel her eyes on him as he eased out the letter, and prodded back his reading glasses. The page was typed, and addressed from a place he didn’t know: St. Bernadine’s Hospice. Dear Harold, This may come to you as some surprise. His eyes ran to the bottom of the page.
“Well?” said Maureen again.
“Good lord. It’s from Queenie Hennessy.”
Maureen speared a nugget of butter with her knife and flattened it the length of her toast. “Queenie who?”
“She worked at the brewery. Years ago. Don’t you remember?”
Maureen shrugged. “I don’t see why I should. I don’t know why I’d remember someone from years ago. Could you pass the jam?”
“She was in finances. She was very good.”
“That’s the marmalade, Harold. Jam is red. If you look at things before you pick them up, you’ll find it helps.”
Harold passed her what she needed and returned to his letter. Beautifully set out, of course; nothing like the muddled writing on the envelope. Then he smiled, remembering this was how it always was with Queenie: everything she did so precise you couldn’t fault it. “She remembers you. She sends her regards.”
Maureen’s mouth pinched into a bead. “A chap on the radio was saying the French want our bread. They can’t get it sliced in France. They come over here and they buy it all up. The chap said there might be a shortage by summer.” She paused. “Harold? Is something the matter?”
He said nothing. He drew up tall with his lips parted, his face bleached. His voice, when at last it came, was small and far away. “It’s—cancer. Queenie is writing to say goodbye.” He fumbled for more words but there weren’t any. Tugging a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, Harold blew his nose. “I um. Gosh.” Tears crammed his eyes.