You Are Here by David Nicholls

YOU ARE HERE by David Nicholls (One Day) is a novel about making sure that someone sees us. Set post-pandemic in the North of England near the beautiful Lake District, the story features Michael Bradshaw, 42 and a geography teacher, and Marnie Walsh, 38 and a freelance copy editor. She is recently divorced, and he is soon-to-be. A mutual friend, feeling each has had too much alone time, has invited them on an outdoors walk along with a handsome pharmacist who like Marnie, lives in London and Tessa, an outdoors-y type whose interests match Michael’s. Little, especially weather, goes according to plan and pretty quickly just Marnie and Michael are left on the walk, heading across England from one coast to the other. Their adventures with nature and a different hotel or pub each night are quite comical. Plus, the walks promote some soul-bearing and a simmering romance as the two start to bond. More details in reviews from The New York Times (“each is such good company for the other and for the reader.”) and The Wall Street Journal (“falls halfway between the serious novel and the breezy fantasy of the beach read”). As I read the thoroughly enjoyable YOU ARE HERE about finding oneself and finding one’s way in the English countryside, I repeatedly thought of Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path and The Wild Silence – also well worth reading.