In addition to their many other charms, islands are ecologically fascinating. Each one is unique, many are home to some of the world’s most remarkable plants and animals, and all susceptible to the effects of human activity. Roger Lovegrove, former director of the RSPB in Wales knows this, and in his recently published Islands Beyond the Horizon: The Life of Twenty of the World’s Most Remote Places from Oxford University Press he promises to share his observations on the natural history of twenty of the world’s most remote examples of his title subject.