About the Author

Shirley MacLaine is a highly successful, Oscar-winning actress and bestselling writer. As well as starring in a run of top films over the last few decades, including SWEET CHARITY, IRMA LA DOUCE, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT and its sequel, THE EVENING STAR, MacLaine has also written a number of memoirs and spiritual guides. She is presently living in Malibu, California.

Reviews

MacLaine, an award-winning actress and the author of eight best sellers, shares her 30-day pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. The "camino" (the road that all pilgrims must take) gives her time to reflect on the values in her life. She suggests ideas along the way, e.g., "Tune in to the experience and drop your orientation of accomplishing a goal. The goal is the path." One comes to know MacLaineDwhat has happened in her 60 years, what she considers important, how her father influenced her, how she views life philosophically, and what she has to work on as she spends ten hours every day walking the almost 500 miles. She relates many everyday happenings, from getting lost or trying to avoid a group who recognize her as a celebrity, to her dreams (from which she draws some parallels). Readers of her previous works will enjoy this account of her journey; libraries carrying her earlier titles will do well to add this title for patron requests. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/00.]DLeroy Hommerding, Fort Myers Beach P.L., FL Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Following a centuries-old tradition, entertainer MacLaine walked nearly 500 miles across northern Spain's Camino Santiago de Compostela. This memoir of her formidable journey, like her other books, is a likely candidate for bestsellerdom as well as for ridicule in some quarters. An effort to "feel human again," her physical feat was daunting: she hiked for 10 hours a day on her own, often in intense heat, and slept in refugios--crowded, dirty shelters. Though she observes the small villages, historic cathedrals and other trekkers along the way, MacLaine is most interested in her interior journey. The actress, who has written before about her numerous past lives in such books as Out on a Limb and Dancing in the Light, senses that she's walked the Camino before as a coffee-colored, dark-haired woman of Charlemagne's time. Visited in dreams by a spiritual guide, she connects her various lives and soul mates, revealing that her former lover (in this life) was Olaf Palme, the assassinated Swedish Prime Minister. As the journey progresses, she revisits the origins of the human race in the edenic Lemuria, then the dawn of Atlantis and on to ADAMic civilization. On the earthly plane, MacLaine seems to enjoy evading the press, which she compares to fearsome dogs, and whose pursuit escalates as she gets closer to the end of the journey. Though she completed the Camino in 30 days instead of the planned 40, her arrival in Santiago lacks a Hollywood finale. Instead, she slips into the famous cathedral and leaves immediately for Madrid. Major ad/promo; author tour; 20-city TV satellite tour; 20-city radio satellite tour. (May) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.