Leslie Thomas's odyssey is a vivid, personal account of the most fascinating islands at the furthest reaches of the globe- to islands as distant and diverse as Saint-Pierre et Miquelon off Newfoundland and Great Barrier Island off New Zealand, and to places more familiar by name, including Nantucket, Fair Isle, Tahiti, and Capri, this journey voyages to the world's smaller places.

Descriptive, evocative and liberally sprinkled with anecdotes, the book weaves together a tapestry of impressions. Beachcombing for local legends, geography, colonial history and maritime lore, Thomas's search for the mystique of these islands gives the reader a unique insight into an extraordinary and beautiful world of islands.

'My World of Islands reads as a paean to a past age... a reminder that the entire world has not yet been reduced to Frejus or Marbella' Times Literary Supplement