1. A chilling novel about the near future, where most of the world has been
destroyed by catastrophic floods. Seven years ago, as the waters rose, a father
and his three children took to their ark and drifted to the safety of a small island.
As they begin to rebuild their lives on the island, his young son Finn begins to
question how they arrived there and why they alone have been spared. Finn’s
search for understanding takes an unexpected turn when a strange man named
Will swims ashore, and he appears to know quite a bit about this family and
the circumstance that surrounded the floods. But Finn’s father is determined to
keep him silent and is willing to do anything to prevent Will from disturbing his
family’s idyllic life on the island. Sam Taylor’s The Island at the Endo f the World
is a riveting post–apocalyptic tale that explores the darkness that lies within
the hearts of men. It is an original, moving exploration of family love, truth and
lies, and how strange and frightening it can feel for a child to discover the adult
world.
Sam Taylor was born in 1970
and grew up in Nottingham-
shire. After going to university
in Hull and North Carolina,
where he read American
Studies and wrote a disser-
tation on Bruce Springsteen
and the American Dream,
his plan was to travel around
southern Europe and write a
novel. Instead he accidentally
became a journalist and pop
culture correspondent for The
Observer, where he wrote and
edited for eight years. In 2001
he quit his job and moved, with
his wife and young children, to
rural southwest France, near
the Pyrénées. He is now a full-
time writer. His first book, The
Republic of Trees, was pub-
lished in 2005 and received
critical acclaim. His second
novel, The Amnesiac, tells the
story of James Purdew, a man
obsessed with uncovering the
events of three years of his life
about which he remembers
nothing.
THEISLANDATTHEENDOFTHEWORLD
THE
THE ISLAND AT THE END OFTHE WORLD
SAM TAYLOR
“The Island at the End of the World” is a deeply unnerving and beautifully
written exploration of family, reality and fiction, and the baffling nature of the
adult world through the eyes of children
The history of Penguin is
almost as interesting as the
thousands of titles pub-
lished by this company over
the past 75 years. Step
back to 1935 when Allen
Lane decided that he want-
ed to turn book borrowers
into book buyers and pub-
lished the first 10 Penguin
books. Each one cost just
six pence at a time when
hard covers were priced
at seven or eight shillings.
Those 10 books revolution-
ized publishing by making
great literature very afford-
able, and kicked off Pen-
guin’s long and illustrious
history.
The real legacy of Penguin,
however, is not longevity
or the broad catalogue,
but the amazing number of
influential and award-win-
ning books that have been
published over the years.
Even today, Penguin has
its finger on the pulse of
readers with megasellers
like Three Cups of Tea and
Eat, Love, Pray.
SAM TAYLOR
TAYLOR
ISLANDAT THE END OF THE
WORLD