Selected Product:
| An Island to Oneself
Hardcover
Author: Tom Neale
Publisher: Ox Bow Press
Release Date: 1990-09
ISBN-10: 0918024765
ISBN-13: 9780918024763
List Price: $24.95
Average Customer Rating:
 | |
One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey (Annivers
ISBN-10: 0882405136
ISBN-13: 9780882405131
List Price:$16.95
Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea
ISBN-10: 0618257322
ISBN-13: 0046442257329
List Price:$14.00
Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea
ISBN-10: 0618257322
ISBN-13: 9780618257324
List Price:$14.95
Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls: True Stories of Castaways and Other Survivors
ISBN-10: 0395911508
ISBN-13: 9780395911501
List Price:$16.00
Searching for Paradise: A Grand Tour of the World's Unspoiled Islands
ISBN-10: 0345435109
ISBN-13: 9780345435101
List Price:$19.00
Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls: True Stories of Castaways and Other Survivors
ISBN-10: 0395911508
ISBN-13: 0046442911504
List Price:$16.00
Castaway in Paradise: The Incredible Adventures of True-Life Robinson Crusoes
ISBN-10: 1574090666
ISBN-13: 9781574090666
List Price:$14.95
|
To use our price comparison to get the cheapest price, please click on the "Find the Cheapest Price" button located above for An Island to Oneself by Tom Neale (ISBN-10: 0918024765, ISBN-13: 9780918024763).
At this time we have not yet written a review for An Island to Oneself by Tom Neale (ISBN-10: 0918024765, ISBN-13: 9780918024763). Please continue to keep checking back to this page as we are constantly adding reviews.
Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
fantastic book
| Customer Rating: | | This book is so good that i could not put it down. I I have often daydreamed about living on a desert island or even just out in the wilderness away from civilization and this book just makes me want to grab some gear and go. Tom Neale did what few do in this day and age. His writing is also so good that I was just as captivated by his day to day living as I was by the horrific details of books like "Into Thin Air". A must read for anyone who has dreamed of living off the land. |
Neale had a kindred spirit. Read on.
| Customer Rating: | A friend highly recommended "One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey" by Sam Keith and Richard Proenneke (Paperback - May 1999). I knew when I read the jacket blurb that here was another Tom Neale, only this time he isolated himself in the middle of Nowhere, Alaska. So, Neale is hot and Proenneke (the one who lived the adventure) cold, but they faced similar challenges and found ways to rise to the occasion.
And Proenneke and Neale were contemporaries, both hardy, solitary, infinitely capable men. If you enjoyed Neale's story, I can't imagine you wouldn't also enjoy Proenneke's. I would have paid a good sum to be in the same room had these guys ever met and started exchanging stories.
|
The perfect "virtual escape"
| Customer Rating: | | While Tom Neale did what most of us will only ever daydream of doing, his wonderfully told story, full of vivid detail, will transport you to his beloved island and allow you to escape as he did, if only vicariously. I simply loved this book, and will read it anytime I feel the need to "get away" from it all. |
Suvarov sounds like a beautiful place
| Customer Rating:  | First of all there were 28 reviews on this book before mine, 27 of them were 5 star ratings - that tells you people really love this book. I thought it was very good & I along with most of the other reviewers would love to find a place like this to get away to. I am glad that Tom Neale took the time to write about his adventures because beautiful tropical uninhabited islands are something that don't really exist anymore. The events in this book took place just a generation or so ago & the isolation Tom Neale found there is mostly gone nowadays. In the early 1960's Tom would go up to 14 months without even seeing another human being. Compare that to 2006 - online I can see that at this current moment there are 16 sailboats anchored at Suvarov Atoll.
I thought the best moments in the book are when Tom is describing his friend the duck or his cats...or just his total happiness.
I have a couple minor negative points to add: The book was written in 1966 & the newest edition available was printed in 1990. The "postscript" in my 1990 edition says that Tom left Suvarov in December 1963 for a variety of circumstances & was going to live out his days on Rarotonga rather than die a lonely death on an isolated island.
I was very suprised to find out via the internet that he went back in 1967 & lived there until 1977. I think a postscript in a book written in 1990 should have this information in it.
I also thought it was strange that when you read the book Tom describes his life between 1954 & 1960 as a terrible time where daily he tried to find a way to get back to Suvarov , worked in a dreary store & after work would go home every day & work on a boat he was building. He mentions a few friends and not much else. When I looked up his history after reading the book I see that in this time he got married & 2 years after this became a father. I think it just shows that Tom was a very private person by not even mentioning this in his book. |
An amazing story of a real "Survivor"
| Customer Rating: | No video cameras and immunity for Tom Neale, he did the real deal all by himself for years on a deserted atoll.
A fascinating story of what it takes to survive and a great character study of the type of person who can/would do it.
Tom lived the lazy island life but wasn't satisfied and finally went out to pull a Robinson Crusoe (at the age of 50!). And this was in the 50s. He had no satellite phone to get him out in an emergency, no doppler weather reports, no Honda(tm) generator.
On top of that, he had no safety net. Off the regular shipping channels, he had no scheduled visits, just some random people who happened to pass by and say hi. It was just his skill, determination and a great knowledge of island living that allowed him to survive and thrive.
His daily struggles (from pesky hermit crabs up to life threatening injuries) are a fascinating peek into a life most people will never experience.
After you finish it, be sure check out Wikipedia and the web for more information (and pics) on his life after this book.
An amazing read that ends much too quickly. |
|
