Island of Dreams: A Personal History of a Remarkable Place
By Dan Boothby
3/5
()
About this ebook
Dan Boothby had been drifting for more than twenty years, without the pontoons of family, friends or a steady occupation. He was looking for but never finding the perfect place to land. Finally, unexpectedly, an opportunity presented itself. After a lifelong obsession with Gavin Maxwell's Ring of Bright Water trilogy, Boothby was given the chance to move to Maxwell's former home, a tiny island on the western seaboard of the Highlands of Scotland.
Island of Dreams is about Boothby's time living there, and about the natural and human history that surrounded him; it's about the people he meets and the stories they tell, and about his engagement with this remote landscape, including the otters that inhabit it. Interspersed with Boothby's own story is a quest to better understand the mysterious Gavin Maxwell.
Beautifully written and frequently leavened with a dry wit, Island of Dreams is a charming celebration of the particularities of place.
Dan Boothby
Dan Boothby was born in 1969. He has travelled extensively, including sailing over 40,000 sea miles. Island of Dreams is his first work of creative non-fiction.
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Reviews for Island of Dreams
4 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5For two decades Boothby had been a perennial drifter. Always looking for that right place to settle, but never finding it meant that he moved from job to job and here there and everywhere. Then he was presented with a chance to live on the tiny island of Kyleakin, just off of Skye. Not only was this a unique opportunity, it was also the former home of Gavin Maxwell, author of Ring of Bright Water, and one of Boothby’s literary heroes.
He is asked to help the volunteers there with various tasks and running some of the tours round the island and lighthouse. Being an incomer it takes a while to gain the trust of those around him, but slowly those friendships are built. The island is a fantastic place for wildlife, there are basking sharks just off the shore, eagles soar the skies, seals zip through the waters and of course there are the otters. And as he settles in he starts to try and uncover and understand the mysterious man that was Maxwell. He meets people that knew him, and hears the rumours and stories from the locals of what they though was going on at the time.
This book is as much about the place as it is the personality of Gavin Maxwell. Where it is situated on the West Coast of Scotland means that it can be subject to the most brutal of winter storms. Boothby writes about the place with a genuine warmth. He likes the solitude that it can offer, whilst enjoying the company of others at other times. The writing is full of melancholy, as he uses the time there to reflect on his past, not with regret, just contemplation. I think that he appreciated the time that he spent there, and the freedom that he got. Worth reading in my opinion.