An Island to Oneself by Tom Neale
While in the Cook Islands, we went to the National Museum and it was there that I first heard about Tom Neale and saw reference to him on a census of island populations from the 1950s ("Suvarov: population 1" with a footnote saying "Tom Neale"!). He was the only inhabitant of Suvarov, an atoll in the Cook Islands, having done what many people only dream of. He left civilisation and moved to a beautiful, deserted island in the Pacific, replete with coconut trees, jungle, and an azure lagoon. Not only that, but he survived and prospered there and wrote an amazing autobiography of the time, called "An Island to Oneself".
I tried to borrow "An Island to Oneself" from the National Library on Rarotonga (there is only one library on Rarotonga!) but unfortunately all copies were out. So, I turned to Amazon (the long tail poster child), and was very happy to find they could source me a copy. I don't want to spoil the tale, but recommend you have a read if you have ever thought about what life would be like on a desert island, surviving only by your own wit and skills, hundreds of miles from civilisation!
UPDATE (22 Aug 09): Recently, Taori wrote to me to say that he had made an electronic version of the book and put it online (with a number of other pacific island works and Tom Neale photos and info). Here is the main site and also a direct link to "An Island to Oneself" eBook.
