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 best books about 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 The best nonfiction books about humanity and nature in the Galapagos Islands.
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