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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>In Island Dreams, Gavin Francis examines our collective fascination with islands. He blends stories of his own travels with psychology, philosophy and great voyages from literature, shedding new light on the importance of islands and isolation in our collective consciousness. Comparing the life of freedom of thirty years of extraordinary travel from the Faroe Islands to the Aegean, from the Galapagos to the Andaman Islands with a life of responsibility as a doctor, community member and parent approaching middle age, Island Dreams riffs on the twinned poles of rest and motion, independence and attachment, never more relevant than in today's perennially connected world.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br>In <i>Island Dreams</i>, Gavin Francis examines our collective fascination with islands. He blends stories of his own travels with psychology, philosophy, and great voyages from literature, shedding new light on the importance of islands and isolation in our collective consciousness.--GAVIN FRANCIS<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><b>Praise for <i>Adventures in Human Being</i>: </b>"Engaging and edifying . . . breathes life into the study of anatomy by situating it in the larger landscape of human experience, connecting the body to art, literature, music, astronomy, and history" <i>New York Review of Books</i><br><br>A thrilling book - beautiful and spare at once . . . A real achievement--TIM DEE<br><br>An intoxicating voyage during which maps become fictions and fictions verifiable facts. Myths of returning and older legends carry us out in a shared fugue of obsession and release. Here is a worthy companion to the dream labyrinths of Borges--IAIN SINCLAIR<br><br>Gavin Francis is a wonderful writer--thoughtful, engaging, immensely knowledgeable, and supremely human--BILL BRYSON<br><br>"Beyond the fine detail and the erudition of his medical investigations, what marks Francis out as a perfect guide to our physical selves is his sensitivity to metaphor, simile and analogy, his deftness with language . . . an astonishing, moving, and enchanting book" <i>New Statesman</i><br><br>"This sort of book has been done before but not nearly so well . . . <i>Adventures in Human Being</i>, with its deft mix of the clinical and the lyrical, is a triumph of the eloquent brain and the compassionate heart" <i>Wall Street Journal</i><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>Gavin Francis</b> is an award-winning writer and doctor. He is the author of four books of non-fiction, including <i>Adventures in Human Being</i>, which was a <i>Sunday Times</i> bestseller and won the Saltire Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award, and <i>Empire Antarctica</i>, which won Scottish Book of the Year in the SMIT Awards and was shortlisted for both the Ondaatje and Costa Prizes. He has written for the<i> Guardian</i>, <i> The Times</i>, the<i> New York Review of Books</i>, and the <i>London Review of Books</i>. His work is published in eighteen languages. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland

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