An eloquent, thoughtful and thought-provoking read ... unreservedly recommended.

MBR Bookwatch

a poignant account of islands and island-ness

Noreen Masud, author of A Flat Place (2023)

Julian Hanna explores islands in concept and experience through erudite, witty and often moving reflections on a life spent archipelago-hopping. He moves nimbly from seemingly unrelated themes - modernist literature, the attractions of British post-punk to Vancouver Island teenagers in the 1980s, sustainable energy, and the problems of exile and return - in narrative that ultimately reveals the distinctive ways that islands bring people together.

Alixe Bovey, Executive Dean and Deputy Director, The Courtauld Institute of Art, UK

Smart, witty, and poignant, Island playfully sends us Julian Hanna's chapters as messages in a bottle from a series of islands, including Vancouver Island, Eday, Hong Kong, Madeira, São Vicente, and Spitsbergen. Inventively mixing criticism, travel writing, and memoir, this sparkling lyrical book reveals islands to be fascinating and fragile spaces that connect and separate, serving as place and metaphor, exile and sanctuary, journey and destination. Island gives us object lessons not just about islands, but also about love and grief and what makes us human. Reading it in Vancouver Island, in one exhilarating sitting, I couldn't put it down.

Alison Chapman FRSC, Professor of English, University of Victoria, Canada

Each essay, rich with philosophical allusions, some poetry, occasional jokes, offers a little world unto itself (just like, hey, an island), but there's a charming recurring motif: every piece is metaphorically delivered to the reader as a message in a bottle, as if being cast upon the sea.

Perceptive Travel