A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST SUMMER TRAVEL BOOK OF 2024
Smith is an ideal guide, movingly conveying the power of the places he visits.

Tom Robbins, Financial Times

Smith is one of the best and most thoughtful travel writers working today. I loved this sensitive, astute, and delicately written account of his journeys to these most sacred places- standing stones and holy islands, crypt-like caves and sports stadia-disparate sites united by their profound effects upon the human psyche. Pilgrimage speaks to something soft and raw and yearning inside all of us, something powerful that goes so often unspoken. Smith bottles it on the page.

Cal Flyn, author of 'Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape'

A wonderfully original and engaging exploration of pilgrimage in modern Britain – with all its diversity of motivation and eccentricity of character. Oliver Smith trips lightly along pilgrims' ways both old and new, with a sharp eye and an open mind.

Tim Hannigan, author of 'The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey'

Warm and wise - a thoughtful, hands-on exploration of Britain's most magical places, and the people who come to pay homage.

Tim Moore, author of 'Vuelta Skelter: Riding the Remarkable 1941 Tour of Spain'

On This Holy Island offers answers to urgent questions about what unites us and brings us together, and what is dear and special to us all about the British landscape and the marks humans continue to make on it. Whether marooned overnight in a cave on the Gower Peninsula or taking an irresistible drive through the back streets of Letchworth Garden City, Oliver Smith's lively and ever-enquiring journey makes light work of seeking to understand the places, people and mysteries of our patch of land.

Tom Hall, Editorial Director at Lonely Planet

An illuminating, moving cross-section of past and present pilgrimages, exploring what transforms a trip into a journey of the soul. On This Holy Island is a window to enchantment for those searching for meaning in the modern world. Illuminating some of the holy rites and routes that we pass through unknowingly every day, giving our daily lives a renewed and much-needed sense of meaning. Reassuring the reader that, whatever the century, the possibility of transcendent connection with something greater might be just around the corner.

Jade Angeles Fitton, author of 'Hermit: A memoir of finding freedom in a wild place'