Notes From a Very Small Island is the follow-up to the bestselling ‘Under a Croatian Sun’, which tells the story of a couple upping sticks and leaving their humdrum life in London for blue skies and café life on an island in Croatia.
Notes From a Very Small Island is the follow-up to the bestselling ‘Under a Croatian Sun’, which tells the story of a couple upping sticks and leaving their humdrum life in London for blue skies and café life on an island in Croatia.
In this second book, the couple continue their attempts to fit in with the village community, but it’s not always easy, and more often than not their endeavours involve them in in hilarious disasters.
They also now try to start some projects up, but they have to battle with maddening ex-communist authorities and highly suspicious locals. However, through this, they get to see the crippling legacies that communism and the recent war have left in the lives of their new neighbours.
Although largely a light hearted tale, the book is also a heartfelt insight into a community trying to adjust to being members of the EU and the ways of the Western World.
Professional Reviews
A warm cheerful read
The book’s chapters mostly begin with Dario. The latter is a local likely lad who has taken a job as a DJ on the island’s community radio station, and his anarchic pronouncements give Stancomb the lead-in to his topics. Dario is also a member of the local cricket team, a surprising survival – says Stancomb – from the Napoleonic Wars, when Nelson;’ navy occupied the island. Dario takes great pleasure in being rude about the Italians, the EU and just about everyone else. “There’s always something strange going on in Romania,” he intones as a bemused Stancomb eats his cornflakes on the terrace one morning. “Last week their government brought in a 16% tax on their witches. No, I’m not kidding. And now the Association of Romanian Witches is putting dog turds and dead cats on the Ministry of Finance’s steps to put a curse on them.” A few days later he reads what purports to be the daily horoscope for Taurus: “An offer leaves you in dilemma. So will you go off with the dark handsome stranger you met at the supermarket, or stay with the civil servant who practices his oboe in the bathroom after supper? But as always, beware of irate partners bearing axes.”
She never felt safe at home as a young girl, and didn't understand why when she finally escaped she wasn't safe in the big wide world either ...effectively jumping out of the frying pan into the fire!
Asa D Seeley, a young Afro American man, shares his struggle to leave his past behind as he reaches for his future. In his one-of-a-kind style, he searches for answers...from the visible & invisible. A Memoir in Poetical/Prose form.
