Worlds apart

Islands make for great metaphors. For the human psyche or, as in Louise
Young’s Islands: Portraits of Miniature Worlds, for our planet. Here is
biodiversity in Hawaii, the collapse of civilisation on Easter Island, “fire,
gold and spice” in Indonesia, the dodo of Mauritius, climate change in Iceland,
and coral atolls, volcanic islands—even Atlantis. Published by W. H.
Freeman, $23.95, ISBN 0716731355.