Book cover of The Last Island: Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth

Book description

"A deft combination of adventure, history, reportage and elegy."-Washington Post

A journey to the coast of North Sentinel Island, home to a tribe believed to be the most isolated human community on earth. The Sentinelese people want to be left alone and will shoot deadly arrows at anyone who tries…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Last Island as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I’ve been thinking a lot this year about how the world has been transformed in my lifetime through cheap air travel, mass media, and finally social media. They made us all more connected yet somehow more alienated from each other.

This book about people living in isolated, traditional societies in the Andaman Islands and their uneasy relationship with “civilization” shows, like no other book I’ve read, how much we lost in the long twentieth century.

Adam Goodheart (full disclosure – a friend) is a gifted writer who is capable of turning the most humdrum tasks, such as opening a TV…

If you love The Last Island...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Want books like The Last Island?

Our community of 13,000+ authors has personally recommended 15 books like The Last Island.

Browse books like The Last Island

Book cover of Andamans Boy
Book cover of The Great Explorers: The European Discovery of America
Book cover of Ptolemy’s Geography in the Renaissance

Share your top 3 reads of 2026!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

181

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like The Last Island, you might also like...

Book cover of Child of Vanris

Child of Vanris by Nikki McCormack,

At five years old, Kasiel was found with the pointed ends of his ears cut off. Despite that brutal start, he’s lived twelve peaceful years with the man who took him in. Keeping his hair long over his mutilated ears helps him hide the fact that he is Vanrian, a…

Book cover of Almost Home

Almost Home by Howard Means,

Almost Home is a fictional retelling of the last great tragedy of the Civil War.

In late April 1865, almost 2,000 newly freed Union prisoners of war are packed onto the steamer Sultana, in poor repair and with a listed capacity of 376 passengers. Among them are four Indiana soldiers…

5 book lists we think you will like!