The British
Isles are an archipelago made up of two large islands and 6,289 smaller
ones. Some, like the Isle of Man, resemble miniature nations, with
their own language and tax laws; others, like Ray Island in Essex, are
abandoned and mysterious places haunted by myths, ghosts and foxes.
There are resurgent islands such as Eigg, which have been liberated
from capricious owners to be run by their residents; holy islands like
Bardsey, the resting place of 20,000 saints, and still a site of
spiritual questing; and deserted islands such as St Kilda, famed for the
evacuation of its human population, and now dominated by wild sheep and
seabirds. In this evocative and vividly observed book, Patrick Barkham
explores some of the most beautiful landscapes in the British Isles as
he travels to ever-smaller islands in search of their special magic. Our
small islands are both places of freedom and imprisonment, party
destinations and oases of peace, strangely suburban and deeply wild.
They are places where the past is unusually present, but they can also
offer a vision of an alternative future. Meeting all kinds of islanders,
from nuns to puffins, from local legends to rare subspecies of vole, he
seeks to discover what it is like to live on a small island, and what
it means to be an islander.
Winner of the National Geographic Reader's Award 2018 Shortlisted for the
Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year 2018 Shortlisted for the BBC
Countryfile Magazine Country Book of the Year 2018 'For all the
islomaniacs out there, Patrick Barkham's Islander looks unmissable'
Robert Macfarlane 'Brimming with nature, this is a fitting tribute to the
strangeness and beauty of our British isles' Financial Times
Islander : A Journey Around Our Archipelago - Patrick Barkham
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£9.99