Monday, February 05, 2007
I have a book called Searching for Crusoe: A Journey Among the Last Real Islands
This book by Thurston Clarke was published by Ballantine Books in February, 2001. The book was then published by Ballantine in January 2002 as Searching for Paradise: A Grand Tour of the World’s Unspoiled Islands.
It was then published by Abacus in July 2003 as Islomania: A Journey Among the Last Real Islands
Sunday, February 04, 2007
I picked up a second hand copy of Pitcairn’s Island at a local antiquarian book fair.
Not a pristine collectible copy, but since I haven’t read this novel, that is based on the, sometimes conflicting, accounts of the events between 1790 and 1880 on Pitcairn’s Island, it seemed like a good opportunity to read this story.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Remote places are hard to get to and the problem is usually the final approaches.
People don’t always like to live in places that can’t be reached by wheeled transport and that is why the north end of the island of Raasay gradually became de-populated (apart from the earlier Highland Clearances). Calum MacLeod lived at the north end of Raasay and after several attempts at persuading his ‘local’ council to build a road, he got down to doing it himself. It took him 10 years with a wheelbarrow, shovel and pick-axe. Of course, the story is a little more involved.
Early references to islands in Celtic myth and lore, and legends of islands at the ‘edge of the world’ and the continuum of island literature and narratives from early times show that the concept of the island is embedded into human consciousness.
Random Image from Islomania:
