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The Island of Missing Trees

Written by: Elif Shafak
Narrated by: Daphne Kouma, Amira Ghazalla
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Publisher's Summary

Bloomsbury presents The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak, read by Daphne Kouma and Amira Ghazalla.

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
Winner of the 2022 BookTube Silver Medal in Fiction * Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction

"A wise novel of love and grief, roots and branches, displacement and home, faith and belief. Balm for our bruised times." —David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue

A rich, magical new novel on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.

Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited—- her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.

A moving, beautifully written, and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.

©2021 Elif Shafak (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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What listeners say about The Island of Missing Trees

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loved this

I will think about this book for a long time .it is one of those books that hit my very favorite list. Beautifully written very engaging story between 1974 and the present. I also learnt a lot of things from this book, not only about Cyprus but what a fig tree taught me!

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Slow burn but worth it

Starts off a bit slow but the writing is beautiful and the overall story pays off.

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Heartwarming

Beautiful. One of my top 5 2022 best reads
Just made me want to go back on these lands and inhale

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Easy to listen, yet complex

Loved the book, this was my first audible book..must say enjoyed listening ….it’s almost like listening to the radio in the old days

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An unexpected treasure!

Deeply moving, this creative and informative novel gives you an education and an understanding of the connection between humans and nature within the historical background of the Cyprian crisis of 1974.
Lovely to listen to on a Greek island;)

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What an Amazing Novel!

History and an unlikely romance told through the eyes of plants and animals. I didn't expect to fall in love with this book and yet I did. Fabulous narrators made it even better. Loved every minute of it.

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Fiction with facts

The story is engaging but I found the fig tree’s interjections slightly annoying as I didn’t like her voice. I learned about the Cyprus conflicts and history of the island but at times the facts in the story such as botanical information, war exhumations processing and stuff about bees and ants (not to mention parrots) became a bit divorced from the narrative and sounded like Wikipedia pages being read out. The author has put so many issues into this work including school and social media bullying, PTSD, genocide, LGBTQ, racism, substance use, generational trauma, traditional life versus immigration to new cultures etc etc that it was hard to come away with an overall feeling of closure. However, I think the family story at the centre of it all was heartwarming.

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Loves this book

I can’t stop thinking about it! Seriously an amazing novel. Yes, slow to get into it, but then you will wish it never ended

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I found this book to be very entertaining

I wasn’t sure if I was gonna like this book but the story was well written.. I can’t quite explain why but I really truly just enjoy reading this entire book…

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Amazing book

Highly recommended, listened in one weekend. Beautifully written. Love it. Narrated so well. Amazing book.

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