Book 67 - Lundy, Rockall, Dogger, Fair Isle

Lundy, Rockall, Dogger, Fair Isle: A Celebration of the Islands around Britain by Mathew Clayton and Anthony Atkinson - first published 2015

I desperately wanted to love this book and I do like the idea of it: the book is divided into sections: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Isles of the Imagination.  There is a page or two about each chosen island.  The print is made to look like handwriting, almost as if the book were a diary or journal and the rest of the space is taken up with black and white line drawings.  The drawings are the best bit.  I would agree that in many cases less is more.  However in this case there is so little text about each island that it gives only a faint taste of the history, customs, natural history or landscapes of each one.  I could forgive this too, if only it were accurate.  Without trying hard I spotted 5 glaring errors:

• Farne Islands - it says that Grace Darling and her father William rescued 9 people from a shipwreck in 1838 but that she died aged 26 in 1942.
• Rathlin is wrongly spelt Raithlin in the index and on the page heading.
• Eilach an Naoimh is wrongly spelt Eilach an Naomih in both the index and the on the page heading.
• The section on the Orkney Islands starts with Hoy and Papa Westray, then goes on to Rockall (300 miles west of mainland Scotland) and then on to the Shetland Islands before inexplicably returning to pages about Stenness, Skara Brae and Scapa Flow, all of which are on Orkney.  It then goes back to the Shetland Islands.  I thought maybe the pages had been bound in the wrong order but the page numbers are correct.
• The entry for Yell mentions the memorial at Gloup to the 58 fishermen who perished out at sea in a storm in 1881.  However the drawing is of the statue of Our Lady of the Isles many miles away from Yell and in the Outer Hebrides on the island of South Uist.  Both statues are of a woman holding a small child.  However there are quite different:

 Gloup Memorial, Yell

Statue of Our Lady of the Isles, South Uist

The islands chosen for inclusion in the book were a good cross section of the islands around the British Isles.  I did enjoy the section on the Islands of the Imagination.  However the book is written in the third person and it doesn't feel like the author has actually visited the islands himself: there are no personal recollections and nothing about any of the current residents.  I don't think I have ever said this before, but I think I could write a better book than this.

Islands covered: Brownsea, Burgh, Channel Islands, Farne Islands, Foulness, Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, Lindisfarne, Lundy, Piel Island, Scilly Isles, Steep Holm, St Michael's Mount, Aran, Blaskets, Clare, Copeland, Dorinish, Rathlin, Skellig Michael, Ailsa Craig, Aran, Bass Rock, Bell Rock, Colonsay, Eilach an Naoimh, Eilean Ban, Eriskay, Flannan Isles, Jura, Lewis, Luchruban, Rum, Skye, Staffa, North Rona, Hoy, Papa Westray, Rockall, Fair Isle, Foula, Out Stack and Muckle Flugga, Papa Stour, Whalsay, Yell, St Kilda, Anglesey, Bardsey, Caldey, Puffin Island, Ramsey, Skokholm + imaginary islands: Avalon, Doggerland (not really imaginary as it did once exist), Hy Brazil, Kirrin Island, Sodor, Summerisle, Tir na nog and Utopia

Book 66 - Blood on the Sand

Blood on the Sand by Pauline Rowson - first published in 2010

This is the 5th in the series of Detective Inspector Horton novels but it is also a stand alone novel. DI Andy Horton is on holiday in the Isle of Wight when he finds a young woman on a golf course early one morning.  She is holding a gun and bending over a dead man, who turns out to be her brother.  The local detective Birch believes she is mentally deranged and guilty.  She is taken to hospital but absconds and then more murders are committed and she is suspected.  However it is of course not that simple.  The dead man was working on a European environmental project and the conspiracy around it goes back decades.  The book is a bit dull to be honest. 

Islands covered - Isle of Wight 4/10

Book 65 - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer - first published in the UK in 2008

This book is written wholly in the form of letters sent mainly between writer Juliet Ashton and her publisher Sidney, friend Sophie and various members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.  Apparently this makes it an epistolary novel - a term I had not come across before.  The book is set in 1946.  The story of how the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society came into being during the German occupation of the Channel Islands in the Second World War and what happened to its founder Elizabeth McKenna gradually unfolds.  The book is moving and heartwarming but at the same time it doesn't shy away from describing some of the awful things that the Germans did on Guernsey to the islanders and their forced and slave (Todt) labourers who they brought from all over Europe to build up the island's defences to repel an Allied invasion that never came.

Elizabeth had a relationship with a decent German officer called Christian.  She got pregnant and gave birth to their daughter Kit.  However by this time Christian had been killed when the ship he was travelling in to France was bombed and sunk by the Allies.  Elizabeth was later deported to a concentration camp in Germany for helping a friend to shelter a starving Polish Todt worker.  Kit is left behind in the care of the society members.

After corresponding with the members of the society for a while, Juliet travels to Guernsey to visit them.  She falls in love with the island, the way of life, the society members and Elizabeth's daughter Kit.

This is Mary Ann Shaffer's only published book.  She sadly died in 2008, so never knew how popular her novel would be.

Islands covered - Guernsey 9/10

L'Ancresse - German Watchtower

 Moulin Huet, Guernsey