Book description
This is the story of Johanna Angermeyer-Fox's search for her family, part adventure story, part detective story which culminates in the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. It is a fascinating account of the pleasures and hardships of living in one of the world's most remote places.
Why read it?
2 authors picked My Father's Island as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Many people don't realise that the Galápagos Islands are inhabited. Settlers began to arrive in the middle of the 20th century. Before that, there were pirates, convicts, and oddballs, then pioneers from Europe.
In the 1930s five brothers, the Angermeyers, arrived, fleeing Hitler's Germany. I met Johanna Angermeyer, whose father was one of those brothers. Little did I know the amazing story behind how she got there. Johanna grew up in California, her mother once married to an Ecuadorian pilot. He died in a plane crash, then she had a romance with one of the brothers in Quito, but he…
From David's list on the Galápagos Islands.
As a young girl, Johannah was my friend and neighbor, a quiet and pensive young woman with a strong artistic bent and at times a wicked sense of humor. Her book is an enchanting, at times whimsical, account of a teenage girl rediscovering for herself what had drawn her late father, whom she barely knew, and his three brothers to carve out a life in the remote Galapagos Islands pre WWII, as an antidote to the rising Third Reich.
From Tui's list on humanity and nature in the Galapagos Islands.
If you love My Father's Island...
These Blue Mountains
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Want books like My Father's Island?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like My Father's Island.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,340
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like My Father's Island, you might also like...
Foxfire in the Snow
It's a time of change, between magic and alchemy.
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
The Main Gate
Dr. Elise Marquette has spent years burying the past—until the past refuses to stay buried.
Hired to join Earth’s first interstellar contact team, she hopes the vastness of space will finally offer distance from the ghosts of war and the wounds left by a mother who never let her be…
