Recommendations: books set on islands or a sense of place; unreliable narrators; food; music

[StColumbofNavron]

A bit of a list of requirements. Fiction and non-fiction welcome.

I am looking for books that evoke a real sense of place e.g. like Wuthering Heights makes you feel as though you are on the Moors, or A Theatre for Dreamers makes you feel like you are on a Greek island and the sun is burning your skin. Anything involving an island is even better but not essential.

Then, anything with an unreliable narrator(s).

Anything involving food where it is visceral and where music is used cleverly.

Gulliver's Travels!

I'd second Like Water for Chocolate.

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth (Music)

The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam (Unreliable Narrator)

One more croissant for the road by Felicity Cloake (Food)

Another vote for Toast by the lovey Nige.

I was recommended The Blind Man of Seville by my GP when he heard I was going there on hols. It's an excellent book quite apart from the murder mystery element as it details so much of Andalucian Spanish culture, food & sone music in the form of the fiestas towards the end. It made me want to go & eat & drink everything mentioned & soak up the sun in the streets full of colourful mosaic tiles & ornately carved stone fretwork.

Not exotic but very evocative - Sarah Moss Nightwaking set on a Scottish Island.
Also Victoria Hislop’s The Island set in Crete.

Sweetland by Michael Crummey. About New Foundland, a bit spooky and surreal. Perhaps you can get it cheaply secondhand.

Where the crawdads sing by Delia Owen. Not an island but very watery.

How odd, i came on to suggest The Magus and see it recommended in the first couple of comments - it isn’t usually one that comes up. I read it travelling around spain and it really resonated.

totally different, but love This Enchanted April too.

That’s a great motivation for a reading list, OP. I’d recommend all my recommendations just as great reads, never mind that they fit your criteria.

Set on an island: Why the Whales Came, Michael Morpurgo. For children, but I found it very evocative of the Isles of Scilly when I read it as a child, and more recently when I read it to DD.

DH recommends Secret River by Kate Grenville for sense of place - early 19th century Australia when it was being colonised.

A non-fiction one but The Ourun by Amy Liptrot is a memoir set on an island. She goes home to Orkney to recover from alcoholism and there are maps and a real sense of place.

For fiction about Orkney try Beside the ocean of Time by George Mackay Brown or Magnus Merriman by Eric Linklater.

Sorry that should say The Outrun

The Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome. Set in the Lake District, on the Norfolk Broads and the Essex Marshes (and China and the Caribbean and the middle of the North Sea but those are a bit more fanciful). Although children's books they evoke a wonderful sense of place and time in the 20s and 30s. Ransome sailed himself and knew the places well.

Marika Cobbold Frozen Music - for the island, not the music. Also Miss Ranskill comes Home though island more a memory. Agree we We were Liars.

The best "unreliable narrator" books are the ones you don't know are unreliable surely? I'm already a bit disappointed I've seen the ones named on this thread! 😁😆

@ExistentialApathy of course, but I’m looking for examples of how it’s done I suppose.

Spoiler siren in thread title then? 😆

I’m seconding anything by Andrew Michael Hurley and Waykenhurst.
Also - The Whistling - set on a Scottish island.

Unreliable narrator - How to Kill Your Family - it’s really full on though, like a stream of consciousness, so v intense.

Moloka'i by Alan Brennert. Set in Hawaii. It's fantastic.

Ooh and Elizabeth Jane Howard, Sea Change. Brilliant sense of place, best of her books I think.

The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen is a wonderful island book.

The Ice Twins by SK Tremayne? Set on a Scottish island

A Watermelon, A Fish and A Bible by Christi Lefteri is set on Cyprus during the war and is quite hard reading in parts but I found it very visceral. Lots of food and sunshine and very emotive. I loved it.

Not on an Island and non fiction but English Pastoral by James Rebanks is huge on sense of place and really gripping - set in Yorkshire on a farm.

Elizabeth Is Missing is an interesting unreliable narrator

@muppamup, I also loved Shantaram. Have his follow up but as yet unread.

Yes loved this

What about The Island by Victoria hislop