The Island of Missing Trees

By Elif Shafak,

Book cover of The Island of Missing Trees

Book description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2022
A REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK
SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2021

A rich, magical novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World - now a top ten Sunday Times bestseller

It is 1974 on the island…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Island of Missing Trees as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

My current can’t-put-this-down read, The Island of Missing Trees is set between present-day London and Cyprus in the 1970s during the break-out of the civil war on the island.

It’s a family drama told in third person but interspersed between chapters following the lives of Ada and her star-crossed parents, a Greek man and a Turkish woman, there are whole sections of this book told from the perspective of a fig tree.

I particularly enjoy all of these sections because I never thought I might find myself one day sympathising/empathising with a tree and yet somehow, Shafak is really able…

From Anastasia's list on to odyssey across Greece with.

The setting of the book is unfamiliar in more ways than one. The story, which has its origins in Cyprus, is of a Cypriot Greek and a Cypriot Turk couple, their British-born daughter, and a Ficus carica tree. 

I’ve always had a deep love for the Ficus tree – be it a bo tree or a banyan or a fig. My dream garden did not have glamorous roses or palms but an old Ficus with its roots hanging and birds and bees in its hair. Even in my book, the Tree Angel is a banyan. 

The author, with her originality,…

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