SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2019 AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER "Readers who like quiet, meditative works will enjoy this strangely affecting buddy story." —Publishers Weekly "Rather than tying up the loose ends, she leaves them beautifully fluttering in the wind, and you do not feel lost in that experience. The writing is poetic and it’s worth savouring." —Angela Caravan, Shrapnel A bad dream leads to a strange poetic pilgrimage through Japan in this playful and profound Booker International-shortlisted novel. Gilbert Silvester, eminent scholar of beard fashions in film, wakes up one day from a dream that his wife has cheated on him. Certain the dream is a message, and unable to even look at her, he flees - immediately, irrationally, inexplicably - for Japan. In Tokyo he discovers the travel writings of the great Japanese poet Basho. Keen to cure his malaise, he decides to find solace in nature the way Basho did. Suddenly, from Gilbert's directionless crisis there emerges a purpose: a pilgrimage in the footsteps of the poet to see the moon rise over the pine islands of Matsushima. Although, of course, unlike the great poet, he will take a train. Along the way he falls into step with another pilgrim: Yosa, a young Japanese student clutching a copy of The Complete Manual of Suicide . Together, Gilbert and Yosa travel across Basho's disappearing Japan, one in search of his perfect ending and the other a new beginning. Serene, playful, and profound, The Pine Islands is a story of the transformations we seek and the ones we find along the way.

Reproduction of the original: The Isle of Pines (1668) by Henry Neville

An amended and updated version of the first edition of the conifer book Pines is available in paperback and as e-book The scope and structure of the book have been maintained. It includes several taxonomic changes and presents a new chapter on phylogeny. Conservation aspects have been added. The book contains a total of 92 drawings and 103 distribution maps. You may find the updated edition link texthere.

The scope of this publication is limited to mappable information about where pines grow naturally at present. We have not tried to relate present distribution to the fossil record, nor have we tried to indicate the ecological and historical factors controlling species distribution. The elevations at which pines grow are mentioned only in the most general terms; this aspect of distribution is intimately related to latitude, topography, and other features of the local environment.

This second edition of the conifer book Pines is an amended and updated version of the first edition, which sold out in 2002. The scope and structure of the book have been maintained. It includes several taxonomic changes and presents a new chapter on phylogeny. Conservation aspects have been added. The book contains a total of 92 drawings and 103 distribution maps.

"Employing oral histories to flesh out the economic, political, and cultural facts of this Caribbean frontier, McManus interviewed residents from all periods of the island's immigration and development: American settlement during the first quarter of the century; Japanese, Jamaican, and Cayman Island immigration during the second quarter; and its radical transformation, after 1960, by the presence of thousands of young Cubans from the main island who became its permanent residents and were joined, temporarily, by students from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Her interviews describe life on the island as remembered by both immigrants and natives - from pirates, soldiers, and planters to housekeepers, fisherman, and students - and include testimony from the last American on the island."--BOOK JACKET.