Victoria Hislop
Paperback | Pages: 473 pages Rating: 4.03 | 35286 Users | 2517 Reviews
Present Books In Pursuance Of The Island
| Original Title: | The Island |
| ISBN: | 0755309510 (ISBN13: 9780755309511) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Alexis Fielding, Sofia Fielding |
| Setting: | Greece,1939 |
| Literary Awards: | Galaxy British Book Awards |
Ilustration To Books The Island
On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more.Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone's throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga - Greece's former leper colony. Then she finds Fotini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip...
Particularize Based On Books The Island
| Title | : | The Island |
| Author | : | Victoria Hislop |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 473 pages |
| Published | : | April 10th 2006 by Headline (first published 2005) |
| Categories | : | Historical. Historical Fiction. Fiction. Cultural. Greece |
Rating Based On Books The Island
Ratings: 4.03 From 35286 Users | 2517 ReviewsArticle Based On Books The Island
I am afraid I really didn't get along with this book at all. It is fairly easy to read and has some interesting subject matter but I feel it takes a scatter gun approach, putting in a little bit of everything, and failing to hit any target. The book covers 70 years of Cretan history and 4 generations of a family. We get information on leprosy, the way it was treated, medically, socially and officially. Hislop includes a range of incidents that took place on and around Spinalonga, which appear toLife inside, and outside, a leper colony...and its aftermath.This book begins with 25 year old Alexis traveling to a small Greek seaside village where her mother grew up. Sophia, Alexis' mother, has always been very secretive about her past, only sharing that she'd been raised by an aunt and uncle. She left when she was 18, never to return. Alexis is determined to find out where her mother came from and what she has been hiding.The book then goes back in time more than fifty years, to the small
This book was awesome. I read it on my honeymoon, while I was laying on the beach, and I couldn't put it down. I read the whole thing in two days. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in European history. I learned a ton about leprosy and the stigma associated with the disease. I think we all know a bit about leprosy, but it was really enlightening about the overall topic, especially since it is still an epidemic in many third world countries. The female characters were also very
I enjoyed this novel so much that halfway thru it I ordered Victoria Hislop's next book. The writing style is fantastic. The descriptions are eloquent without being pompous or overdone. The characters are like everyday people, if a bit exagerated. It starts with Alexis, a young woman trying to get to the bottom of her mother's strange and mysterious past while vacationing in Crete. I would like to note here that it is NOT like the "Forgotten Garden" for those of you that are not fond of time
As readers we all have our comfort zones and historical fiction is definitely not one of my mine, obviously bar a few exceptions. Although I was a bit wary of The Island at first, eventually it did begin to grow on me. Saying that there are flaws but Ill go into that later.Its 2001 and Alexis is visiting Greece, although her main objective is to visit her mothers birthplace in Plaka. There she meets an old friend who knows Alexis family history well tells her the story about her familys origins,
When I first read its reviews, I got a completely wrong impression of this book and was even reluctant to read it, expecting it to be a melodramatic account of a Mediterranean romance. Then a colleague of mine told me she had given it as a reading assignment to her class, so I thought there was more to it than met the eye. It is not only an intricate family saga of four generations, but also a faithful rendering of life in a rural Cretan community and on the isolated island of Spinalonga from
21/1 - I think this book desperately wanted to be a non-fiction history book, but maybe Hislop was unable to find any stories from real residents of Spinalonga so was forced to write it with fictional ones. I was very interested in the story of the inhabitants of the island, the treatments used for leprosy before the cure was found, and what the eventual cure was, but Hislop's writing created a huge distance between me and all of her characters. My experience reading this reminded me of reading
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