Island of the Lost (Joan Druett, A&U, $26.95 pb, ISBN 9781741753684, September) ****

I have always loved stories of shipwrecked sailors, and this is one of the best, thrillingly told. On 3 January, 1864, the Grafton was wrecked on Auckland Island, one of the islands that dot the sea between Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. The five men aboard manage to survive 20 months on the island, through hurricanes, severe food shortages, disease and malnutrition, as well as severe mental depression. Strangely enough, although the island itself is small, the rocky shoals surrounding it caught another victim in May that year, wrecking the Invercauld and
stranding 19 of the 25 crew. The two groups of men did not meet up, but their experiences are fascinating reading. The diaries the men kept at the time, and their later accounts form the basis for Island of the Lost. The men from the Invercauld are rescued after a year on the island, but the men from the Grafton have to use their own ingenuity to escape. This is a book that would be excellent for men of all ages, and women who love adventure tales. Island of the Lost would also be particularly good for young men who are usually difficult to get reading. An excellent book, highly recommended!

Jessica Broadbent is a former bookseller who credits Enid Blyton with inspiring her love of adventure tales

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2007, Thorpe-Bowker