Island of Dreams : A Personal History of a Remarkable Place book cover

Finding Home After Drifting

Travel Writing

Island of Dreams : A Personal History of a Remarkable Place

by Dan Boothby

Dan Boothby had been drifting for more than twenty years, without the pontoons of family, friends or a steady occupation.


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About the book

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.

Book details

Published by Pan Macmillan

Paperback ISBN: 9781509800773 7 Apr 2016 132 x 197 x 22 (mm) 224g