Books Set on Islands

Author	William Golding
ISBN	0140283331

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate; this far from civilization the boys can do anything they want. Anything. They attempt to forge their own society, failing,...

Author	Richard Connell
ISBN	1599869691

A Goodreads Pop Quiz:

QUESTION: What do Gilligan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Homer Simpson and this Star Trek alien** have in common?


ANSWER (select the one that best applies):

1. None of them could act their way out of a puff of smoke.

2. They all starred in adaptations...

Author	Walter Farley
ISBN	0965476022

Published originally in 1941, this book is about a young boy, Alec Ramsay who finds a wild black stallion at a small Arabian port on the Red Sea. Between the black stallion and young boy, a strange understanding grew that you lead them through untold dangers as they journeyed to America. Nor could Alec...

Author

Virginia Woolf

The serene and maternal Mrs. Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr. Ramsay, and their children and assorted guests are on holiday on the Isle of Skye. From the seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse, Woolf constructs a remarkable, moving examination of the complex tensions and...

Author	Marguerite Henry
ISBN	1416927832

On an island off the coasts of Virginia and Maryland lives a centuries-old band of wild ponies. Among them is the most mysterious of all, Phantom, a rarely seen mare that eludes all efforts to capture her--that is, until a young boy and girl lay eyes on her and determine that they can't live without her....

Author

C.S. Lewis

Lucy and Edmund, with their dreadful cousin Eustace, get magically pulled into a painting of a ship at sea. That ship is the Dawn Treader, and on board is Caspian, King of Narnia. He and his companions, including Reepicheep, the valiant warrior mouse, are searching for seven lost lords of Narnia, and...

Author	Gerald Durrell
ISBN	0142004413

When the unconventional Durrell family can no longer endure the damp, gray English climate, they do what any sensible family would do: sell their house and relocate to the sunny Greek isle of Corfu. My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the island but ended up as a delightful...

Author	Agatha Christie
ISBN	0451199928

Since I was a kid reading Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, I have read mysteries in between other books as a palette cleanser. Rather than go into a reading slump, I read a fast paced crime or detective story to clear my head. There is no detective writer I enjoy more than the Queen of Crime herself, Dame Agatha...

Author	William Shakespeare
ISBN	0743482778

Named for the twelfth night after Christmas, the end of the Christmas season, Twelfth Night plays with love and power. The Countess Olivia, a woman with her own household, attracts Duke (or Count) Orsino. Two other would-be suitors are her pretentious steward, Malvolio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

Onto...

Author

Louis de Bernières

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is set in the early days of the second world war, before Benito Mussolini invaded Greece. Dr Iannis practices medicine on the island of Cephalonia, accompanied by his daughter, Pelagia, to whom he imparts much of his healing art. Even when the Italians do invade, life isn’t...

Author	Graham Greene
ISBN	0140184937

Graham Greene's classic Cuban spy story, now with a new package and a new introduction

First published in 1959, Our Man in Havana is an espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire that still resonates to this day. Conceived as one of Graham Greene's 'entertainments,'...

Author	Jules Verne
ISBN	0812972120

I can't remember the number of times I have re-read this Verne masterpiece and discovered something new every time I had. In fact, my book has become so frayed around the edges over the years that I fear I won't be able to open it anymore without being afraid of ruining the pages or the cover for good.
Trying...

Author	James Clavell
ISBN	0440178002

So sorry, I am not worthy of the honor of reviewing this novel. If however, my Lord insists it, then I shall endeavor to offer up some humble thoughts regarding its mighty, even epic narrative. Neh? The scope is so vast, the characters and settings are so many, the head is liable to spin at times, so sorry....

Author	L.M. Montgomery
ISBN	0553280511

An unforgettable story of courage and romance. Will Valancy Stirling ever escape her strict family and find true love?

Valancy Stirling is 29, unmarried, and has never been in love. Living with her overbearing mother and meddlesome aunt, she finds her only consolation in the "forbidden"...

Author	Richard Hughes
ISBN	0940322153

New edition of a classic adventure novel and one of the most startling, highly praised stories in English literature - a brilliant chronicle of two sensitive children's violent voyage from innocence to experience.

After a terrible hurricane levels their Jamaican estate, the Bas-Thorntons...

Author	James A. Michener
ISBN	0375760377

An alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author James A. Michener brings Hawaii’s epic history vividly to life in a classic saga that has captivated readers since its initial publication in 1959. As the volcanic Hawaiian Islands sprout from...

Author	Enid Blyton
ISBN	0340796146

The very first Famous Five adventure, featuring Julian, Dick, Anne, not forgetting tomboy George and her beloved dog, Timmy! There's a shipwreck off Kirrin Island! But where is the treasure? The Famous Five are on the trail - looking for clues - but they're not alone! Someone else has got the same idea....

Author	Christine Kohler
ISBN	1440565619

A young man, an old soldier , and a terrible injustice. Should the punishment be death?

Growing up on Guam in 1972, fifteen-year-old Kiko is beset by worries: He’s never kissed a girl, and he thinks it’s possible he never will. The popular guys get all the attention, but the worst part is that...

Author	Ursula K. Le Guin
ISBN	0553383043

”The hunger of a dragon is slow to wake, but hard to sate.”


The Folio Society edition is superbly illustrated by David Lupton.

The boy is born on the island of Gont in the archipelago of Earthsea. This is a world infused with magic. Not everyone can control this magic, but those...

Author	Mark Dunn
ISBN	0385722435

Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram,* "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens...

Author	Hannah Kent
ISBN	0316243914

A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829.

Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated...

Author	Gertrude Chandler Warner
ISBN	0807576743

I was going to read Surprise Island, and then comment on it, but every page is such a treasure trove of clichés, naïveté, and ridiculousness, that I think I might have to grace you with a running commentary.

Chapter One: The First Surprise

The book begins with Grandfather lovingly...

Author	Alan Brennert
ISBN	0312304358

This richly imagined novel, set in Hawai'i more than a century ago, is an extraordinary epic of a little-known time and place---and a deeply moving testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.

Rachel Kalama, a spirited seven-year-old Hawaiian girl, dreams of visiting far-off lands like...

Author	Homer
ISBN	0143039954

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey, which Jasper Griffin in The New York Times Review of Books hails as "a distinguished...

Author	Marguerite Henry
ISBN	1416927883

A raging storm slashes across Assateague and Chincoteague islands. Water is everywhere The wild ponies and the people must battle for their lives.

In the midst of the storm, Misty-the famous mare of Chincoteague-is about to give birth. Paul and Maureen are frantic with worry as the storm rages...

Author	Tove Jansson
ISBN	0954221710

An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges - one that encompasses not only the summer...

Author	Hergé
ISBN	1405206187

L'ile Noire = The Black Island (Tintin, #7), Hergé
The Black Island (French: L'Île noire) is the seventh volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle for its children's supplement...

Author	William Pène du Bois
ISBN	0140320970

One month after graduating from college, I started working. That was in 1984. I am now in my 4th company and except for my paid vacation leaves and rare sick days, I have never been, even a single day, out of the corporate rate race.

27 years of working and trying to earn a living.

I know it...

Author	Julia Alvarez
ISBN	0452274427

Set during the waning days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in 1960, this extraordinary novel tells the story of the Mirabal sisters, three young wives and mothers who are assassinated after visiting their jailed husbands.

From the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost...

Author	Isabel Allende
ISBN	0061988243

Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarité -- known as Tété -- is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tété finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and...

Author	James Clavell
ISBN	0440184622

An Alternate Cover of this edition can be found here.

Set in the turbulent days of the founding of Hong Kong in the 1840s, Tai-Pan is the story of Dirk Struan, the ruler - the Tai-Pan - of the most powerful trading company in the Far East. He is also a pirate, an opium smuggler, and a master manipulator...

Author

Laurel Snyder

On the island, everything is perfect. The sun rises in a sky filled with dancing shapes; the wind, water, and trees shelter and protect those who live there; when the nine children go to sleep in their cabins, it is with full stomachs and joy in their hearts. And only one thing ever changes: on that day, each...

Author	G.B. Edwards
ISBN	1590172337

Ebenezer Le Page, cantankerous, opinionated, and charming, is one of the most compelling literary creations of the late twentieth century. Eighty years old, Ebenezer has lived his whole life on the Channel Island of Guernsey, a stony speck of a place caught between the coasts of England and France...

Author	Andrea Levy
ISBN	0312424671

Hortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase, her heart broken, her resolve intact. Her husband, Gilbert Joseph, returns from the war expecting to be received as a hero, but finds his status as a black man in Britain to be second class. His white landlady, Queenie,...

Author	Mario Vargas Llosa
ISBN	0571207766

Haunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic - and finds herself reliving the events of 1961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million people. Rafael...

Author	Nora Roberts
ISBN	0399156577

To most people, Fiona Bristow seems to have an idyllic life: a quaint house on an island off Seattle's coast, a thriving dog-training school, and a challenging volunteer job performing canine search and rescue. Not to mention her three intensely loyal Labs. But Fiona got to this point by surviving a...

Author	Marguerite Henry
ISBN	1416927840

An orphaned Chincoteague colt restores happiness to his new owners in this beloved horse story from Newbery Award–winning author Marguerite Henry.

Movie men have come to Chincoteague to film the annual Pony Penning, and Paul and Maureen are thrilled—until they learn that the producers...

Author

Dan Sleigh

This novel of epic proportions from South Africa, set between 1650 and 1710, covers the first fifty years of the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope. Beautifully rendered, this is a world and a time never before dealt with in fiction-a period when powerful colonizers took over the lands of Hottentot...

Author	Nevada Barr
ISBN	0425194493

The five-week New York Times bestseller, now in paperback.Running from a proposal of marriage from Sheriff Paul Davidson, Anna Pigeon takes a post as a temporary supervisory ranger on remote Garden Key in Dry Tortugas National Park, a small grouping of tiny islands in a natural harbor seventy miles...

Author	Kurt Vonnegut
ISBN	0385333870

Galápagos takes the reader back one million years, to A.D. 1986. A simple vacation cruise suddenly becomes an evolutionary journey. Thanks to an apocalypse, a small group of survivors stranded on the Galápagos Islands are about to become the progenitors of a brave, new, and totally different human...