Island Dreams: Mapping an Obsession

(Paperback, Main - Canons)

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SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR

In Island Dreams, Gavin Francis combines stories of his own travels with psychology, philosophy and myth, shedding new light on the importance of islands and isolation in our collective consciousness.

Francis draws on thirty years of island adventures from the Faroe Islands to the Aegean, from the Galapagos to the Andaman Islands. He contrasts these quests for freedom with the demands for commitment required as a doctor, community member and parent. Island Dreams riffs on the twin poles of rest and motion, independence and attachment, never more relevant than in today's ever-connected world.

Reviews

'Gavin Francis is a wonderful writer - thoughtful, engaging, immensely knowledgeable and supremely human' - BILL BRYSON

'For those who have missed travelling this year, and for anyone who has pondered the meaning of "isolation", there is an ideal present - a beautiful and highly illustrated book called Island Dreams, by Gavin Francis, exploring the place of islands in our psyche - from Lamu to the Lofoten Islands, the Faroes to the Falklands, Avalon to the Azores' - HILARY MANTEL

'Highly absorbing . . . Francis combines memoir from a lifetime of travel and the practice of medicine, observations on the geography and history of islands across the globe, and reflections on how islands illuminate his own life and the human condition' - Guardian

'An intoxicating voyage during which maps become fictions and fictions verifiable facts. Myths of returning and older legends carry us out in a shared fugue of obsession and release. Here is a worthy companion to the dream labyrinths of Borges' - IAIN SINCLAIR

'A thrilling book - beautiful and spare at once . . . A real achievement' - TIM DEE

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Author Bio

Gavin Francis is an award-winning writer and GP. He is the author of eight books of non-fiction, including Adventures in Human Being, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and won the Saltire Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award, and Empire Antarctica, which won Scottish Book of the Year in the SMIT Awards and was shortlisted for both the Ondaatje and Costa Prizes. He has written for the Guardian, The Times, the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. His work is published in eighteen languages. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

@gavinfranc | gavinfrancis.com