Islands: A Treasury of Contemporary Travel Writing

These 31 essays, on subjects ranging around the globe from Antarctica to Vancouver to Zanzibar, come from Islands magazine. Among the contributors are Paul Theroux, Jan Morris and Frances FitzGerald, and most essays are very enjoyable, though some seem thin in the pages of a book, illustrating the limits of describing complicated locales (Ireland) or uncomplicated paradises (the Cook Islands). Particularly deft are Pico Iyer on Cuba (``all the quaintness of New Orleans with none of the self-admiration''); Carol McCabe on the island segment of Newfoundland province (where centuries of isolation have bred neighboring settlements with vastly different accents); and Michael Parfit on New Zealand (where a nation that embraces equality seems to be turning itself into the ``breadbasket of the rich''). Herbert Gold's essays on Martinique and the Seychelles exhibit eloquent resonance: an expert on Haiti, Gold finds himself comparing that Creole culture to these two new ones, plumbing the subtleties of racial identity and connection to the metropole. Orientation maps would have been a helpful addition to the volume. (July)