NESOPHILIA

All right, I confess. I am a nesophile. I’m addicted to nesophilia. It’s not on any list of psychiatric disorders, however. The term was invented – a “neologism” – by one of the 20th century’s most eminent philosophers, Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) in 1938 while in Ireland.
When there, he combined the Greek word nesos – island, with philia – love, and declared he was a nesophile – a lover of islands. That’s me.
I suppose that’s obvious by now – for I’ve lost count of the number of islands I’ve written about on TTP
And there are so many more to go! Yet I’ll be writing only about ones that are interesting, not even if they’re famous. I just got back from Majorca and Ibiza, for example. Nice enough, pretty enough – but, frankly, boring. There’s no real there there, as Gertrude Stein said about Oakland, California.
So let’s take a quick look at some islands that would blow Gertrude Stein away – such as the one that has the bed Napoleon died in.









