The peaks, the mountains, the bays and cowes, the small rivers and big vulcanos. On the opposite page a nice drawing of the island, surrounded by pale blue water gives an impression of each. Text on the left, the island on the right: Simple. Sometimes it´s the main geographical aspect of the island – like Volcanoes sometimes cultural and historic aspects – like the descendants of Fletcher Christian of the BOUNTY on Pitcairn and sometimes it´s just a random, seemingly unspectacular fact, blossomed to prosaic height by Judith, characterizing the island best – like the mystical deaths of newborn children on St. And never will.” A ingenious idea: On just one single page per island, painstakingly researched information and trivia to the islands, she tells a short, very short story for each island. Judith Schalansky allocated the subtitle: “50 islands I have never sat foot on. What a lovely book – what a great adventure reading it! I know exactly what she was writing about – and was suddenly fully aware of the emotional extent of this book.

As well in the GDR, fully aware of the fact that we would never leave our small sphere. Knowing that she´d never be able to visit all these place, let alone a neighbouring country like Denmark or France, the atlas became a tool for dreaming. German author Judith Schalansky, born 1980 in the Eastern Germany of the GDR, tells her story on how fascinated she became by atlases as a child. But it was the foreword that got me really into it and touched me deeply in my heart. In this, the idea of writing a book about the fifty remotest islands of the Earth is a wonderful concept of its own. It is so touching and so lovely, so short-whiled and so gripping: It enables the reader to dream himself or herself away, makes you laugh out loud, makes you wonder – but it always makes you wanting to tun over to the next page, to the next island … Like a book from the “good old days” – A masterpiece by publisher MARE This little, just barely 135 pages strong book is one of the best books I´ve discovered in recent years.

Atlas of remote islands