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CUSTOMER REVIEWS:***** |
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'A wonderful quest, a wonderful read', 27 Oct 1998
Reviewer: An Amazon reader
This was a book I picked up with the "I have nothing else
to read..." syndrome, but once picked up, I didn't put it
down until finished. A cross between biography and travel,
Johanna's book at times seemed to include large parts of
fantasy as well, so incredible and hard to believe was the
story. As a child, Johanna knew she was different, but when
she and her family saw her uncles on a television
documentary about the Galapagos Islands, her circumstances
changed rapidly. Then follows her quest to find out the
stories of her mother, her uncles, and her long-lost
father. The writing style is lucid with great descriptions
of both people and places. I am looking forward to the
sequel.
'A delightful biography and travelogue', May 26, 1998
Reviewer: wendy bachmann (Stow, MA)
"My Father's Island" is absolutely delightful. The book includes a very amusing view of cultural differences as seen by young Johanna; first between America and Quito, Ecuador and then between civilized Quito and the rugged pioneer lifestyle required just a few decades ago in the Galapagos.
The flora and fauna of the islands are more accurately named and described here than in the book "Floreanna." I recommend "My Father's Island" over "Floreanna" for providing more information on the islands, the lifestyle and for a more compelling story.
I now feel that I have a better idea of the hardships and challenges faced by the early settlers to the Galapagos. And, to top it off real life love stories are included, too!
I am looking forward to Johanna Angermeyer's next book
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'A wonderfully well-written story', September 26, 1999
Reviewer: An Amazon reader
"My Father's Island" captures the sense of adventure, wonder, and fear of pioneer life on the Galapagos. The story is both humorous and tragic, and the book is compelling enough to read in one sitting.
Internet Reader’s rating: *****
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS:***** |
From Publishers Weekly
The author never knew her father, Hans Angermeyer, nor was she familiar with the circumstances of his last years or death. He was one of five brothers who left Nazi Germany in 1935, sailing to the Galapagos Islands to make a new home. In Ecuador, he married an American widow, Emmasha, who had a small son. They had one child and another on the way when war came. Emmasha and the children returned to the U.S.; Hans, a German national, was denied admittance. When the author was 13, the family returned to Ecuador and to the Galapagos for a meeting with relatives. Living on the island--even without amenities and with its perils--was paradise. Angermeyer learned to hunt, fish and enjoy a Robinson Crusoe-like existence. She gives an engaging account of life on the island with an extended family--and she gradually pieces together the events surrounding her father's death. It is a remarkable story of adventure, romance and the fulfillment of a dream.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Angermeyer offers an unusual look at the Galapagos Islands from the perspective of its settlers, especially her German family who fled Hitler in the 1930s. She heard of these relatives as a child in the United States and dreamed about joining them in "paradise." (Her father had hoped to settle there, too, but succumbed to illness.) Later she learned that paradise consisted mainly of rocks, fire ants, and iguanas. Life on these isolated islands was mostly a matter of survival, even in the 1960s, when she went there, but she fell in love with their beauty and eccentric people. Recommended for collections concerning this part of the world.
- Beth Clewis, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community Coll., Richmond, Va.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc
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CRITICS REVIEWS: ***** |
What
the critics say:
‘What a captivating book! A funny, endearing account of a young girl’s search for her extraordinary family and the discovery of three eccentric German uncles on a remote
Pacific island.’
John Treherne – author of The Galapagos Affair
'Angermeyer’s
story is enlivened with a sense of mystery, romance and
adventure that one expects to find only in a fairy tale:
shipwrecks and escapes, wild stallions and charging boars,
gamboling porpoises, and friendly iguanas, fearsome sharks,
and treacherous scorpions, a half-mad hermit on a desert
island and a forbidding duenna in a great house, a Danish
ballerina and a German baroness, a fallen air hero and a
rogue sailor, all of it building to the immense revelation
of her father’s mysterious and tragic death.. I came
to “My Father’s Island” --- in the mood
for another story of adventure in exotic places. What I
found in Johanna Angermeyer’s book was something
quite different but no less accomplished or compelling.
I was thoroughly prepared to like “My Father’s
Island” but I did not expect to fall in love with
it.'Jonathan
Kirsch - The Los Angeles Times