The Parallel Path

Author Jenn Ashworth
Narrator Melanie Crawley
Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
Publish Date 17 July 2025
Run Time 10 hours and 17 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Diaries, letters and journals, Health, illness and addiction: social aspects, Memoirs, Nature therapy, The countryside, country life: general interest.

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What to expect

Whatever Jenn Ashworth turns her hand to, I'm there to read it'
BENJAMIN MYERS, author of The Offing

'With honesty, humour and determination, Ashworth's journey takes the reader from coast to coast in search of freedom'
JESSICA ANDREWS, author of Milk Teeth

'A miracle of a book . . . One of our finest human nature writers'
RICHARD BEARD, author of Sad Little Men

'Stunning - and stunningly intelligent'
JULIE MYERSON, author of Nonfiction

Burnt out and longing for an escape, Jenn Ashworth emerged from lockdown with a compulsive need to walk - and to walk away. Armed with little more than the knowledge imparted by a two-day orienteering course and a set of maps, she embarked on the most epic of English walks: Wainwright's Coast to Coast.
Guided not just by Wainwright's writing but also by daily letters from her friend Clive - facing an epic journey of his own - Jenn's pilgrimage soon becomes a chance to re-engage with the act of caring for others and for oneself.
But the walk's tricky terrain is not the only thing standing in Jenn's way. As days go by, her balance begins to fail her and the act of putting one foot in front the other becomes a new exercise in caution. When a vicious heatwave forces her to pause her expedition and gives her an opportunity to investigate the new limitations of her body, Jenn is confronted with a life-altering diagnosis - and a new path of self-discovery.

Critics Review

I admired the magnificent, multi-strata meditation on which she takes the reader while putting one foot in front of the other for 190 north-country miles... This blend of memoir and travelogue is more than the story of Ashworth's walk through the north-country landscapes through which she passes. It also becomes a pilgrimage inwards as Ashworth reflects on life, death, bereavement, motherhood, being a northerner, friendship, what it means to care for someone and be cared in turn, the limitations of one body and a single lifespan. I felt I was walking with her, stride for stride.

The Bookseller

Touching, thoughtful and frank - Jenn is a wonderful writer.

David Nicholls, author of YOU ARE HERE

I've long loved Ashworth's uncanny fiction, and this memoir is filled with her characteristic understanding of the connections between the physical world and our interior lives. Wonderful for taking on a walk yourself.

Financial Times

Reading The Parallel Path feels like going on a long walk with an old friend: Jenn Ashworth is exceptionally good company. I loved it.

Mark Haddon, author of THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

Whether it's strange and haunted novels that linger long after the last page has been turned, utterly unnerving short stories or brave memoir excursions in which her own life is laid bare, whatever Jenn Ashworth turns her hand to, I'm there to read it

Benjamin Myers, author of THE OFFING

The Parallel Path is an exploration of need and care. As Jenn Ashworth walks across the country, she learns the strength and precarity of inhabiting a body, and the measures we sometimes take to resist softness. She considers what it means to be from the north, a place which predicates itself on toughness, and how to make space for vulnerability within that. With honesty, humour and determination, Ashworth's journey takes the reader from coast to coast in search of freedom, teaching us to recognise the fragility and strength in our mortality

Jessica Andrews, author of MILK TEETH

Ashworth traces her solo journey walking the North of England's Coast to Coast route, while reflecting on everything from grief to motherhood.

The i

Jenn Ashworth finds a new direction - that of acceptance and resilience - in this beautifully realised, powerful memoir.

Catherine Taylor, author of THE STIRRINGS

The Parallel Path is quietly, and seemingly effortlessly, a masterpiece. Ashworth's deft hand not only leads the reader along the coast to coast walk but also through a personal history and a study of aloneness and determination that makes her every step compelling. It sets a new standard for the walking memoir.

Adam Farrer, author of BROKEN BISCUITS

A miracle of a book in which parallel paths meet: friendship and solitude, strength and weakness, sickness and health. A life exquisitely examined over a long walk across the north of England, from one of our finest human nature writers

Richard Beard, author of SAD LITTLE MEN and THE DAY THAT WENT MISSING

Wainwright's coast-to-coast is nominally an A to B walk, but the path Jenn Ashworth takes in parallel is anything but. Here the act of walking is a prism; at times a compulsion, a pilgrimage, a selfish freedom, an ode to life and loss, a blister-cursed slog under blistering sun. Fastidiously researched, I found the history of women walkers fascinating and the passages on getting lost profound. It is Northern in the recognisable way of frankness and mettle but combined with a vulnerability that is rarely displayed. The landscape sings. Where Wainwright's expedition feels, at times, like a sort of triumphalist safari, in Jenn's steps the journey becomes regenerative. The Parallel Path is a protest at the limitations of the human body and a humbling of it, and the humbling we do for the humans we love. It is one of the most tender and contemplative books I have ever read.

Hollie Starling, author of THE BLEEDING TREE

No one is as honest, tender and elegantly witty as Jenn Ashworth

Helen Mort, author of ETHEL

A stunning - and stunningly intelligent - piece of writing about love, friendship and our relationships with our bodies and ourselves. Ashworth's walk is partly a way of keeping loss at bay, and her bravery - both in life and on the page - is exceptional. I was very moved and with her every step of the way

Julie Myerson, author of NONFICTION

Full of intelligence and wisdom, searing self-awareness and humour, The Parallel Path presents the archetypal journey, which begins as an escape, a restlessness on the stinging tail of the pandemic, and develops into something far more profound: a careworn woman who, through a surprising friendship and a challenging task of endurance, knits herself back together, back into herself. It is about motherhood, friendship, grief, and how difficult it is to allow ourselves to be loved. It is also about how sometimes we must abandon all that we know, in order to rediscover our true nature. From the moment I picked up this book, I knew I was in the hands of a master storyteller. Jenn Ashworth is an incredibly talented writer.

Lily Dunn, author of SINS OF MY FATHER

A wonderfully tender, generous tale of care and companionship in all its forms. The Parallel Path is a pilgrimage through one woman's life of loss and love, and a powerful friendship. Ashworth deftly articulates the experience of walking as a need to leave and just keep going - and the power to be able to come back to yourself. She explores the value of solitude and aloneness and the complexity of the human need for contradictory things and how we learn to live with ourselves nonetheless. Ashworth writes with warmth and self-deprecatory humour, noticing the everyday detail in the ordinary moments of life with a vibrancy that makes you feel as if you are walking along beside her. Never sugaring the pill, she holds her own dilemmas and frustrations lightly, but without undermining them, before you know it you are immersed in her world and wishing you were there too. The Parallel Path shows us the importance of place on who we are, how it houses our memories and griefs, of human stories of living and dying, and our imperfect response to each of these things. It is about expected and unexpected illness and of one woman's path in navigating all the trip hazards on route. A masterclass in memoir and place writing, and a gentle critique of Wainwright (and charity marathons) along the way

Louise Kenward, editor of MOVING MOUNTAINS: Writing Nature Through Illness and Disability

PRAISE FOR JENN ASHWORTH
'A sharp cultural critic'
OLIVIA LAING, GUARDIAN

'A seriously gifted writer'
IRISH TIMES

'A master of modern storytelling'
EMMA JANE UNSWORTH, author of Adults

'Since her debut, Jenn Ashworth has been quietly collecting honours for her distinctive, empathetic and sharply observed novels'
DAILY MAIL

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