Island Stories
An Unconventional History of Britain

Ok, so this is on me, Turns out there’s more than one author named David Reynolds and turns out the one I read before wasn’t this one. The one I read before wrote a fairly lighthearted travelogue Slow Road To San Francisco, where he drove east to west coast figuring out Trumpian America. There was p......more

Island Stories by David Reynolds is a look at Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in the context of the history of the island of Great Britain. I’m American, and we don’t get much British history in our schools. I wanted to read this book because I have been a little bit confused over why the......more

It is an essential read for everyone who wants to understand a few aspects of modern Britain.......more

I can honestly say that this book was not what I expected. I was looking for an “unconventional” history of Britain, what I got instead was a brief synopsis of the last millennium of British history as a setup for the author’s take on Brexit. I guess my main issue with this book is that I cannot fig......more

(Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley) In Island Stories David Reynolds frames Britain’s history through the multiple lenses of a narrative of decline, its relationship with mainland Europe, its own evolution from merely England into the full United Kingdom (and......more