I picked up Eyjar: Icelandic Islands when I was in Iceland in 2013. Glorious aerial shots by Lárus Karl Ingason feature 23 small islands that encircle Iceland. Mark and I will be travelling to Iceland in one week and we will be visiting (and staying overnight) on two of them: Grímsey in the north and Heimaey in the south. Some of these islands are inhabited by only a single family and some are occupied only in the summer. Yet all of the islands are home to vast bird populations. One island, Eldey, featured on the cover, is a cliffy rock literally covered with gannets. I looked at the photo with a magnifying glass and every square inch of flat land is occupied by these birds. Even the narrow ridges on the cliff edges below are crowded with birds. Eldey has an elevation of 77 metres and is only 0.03 sq km; it is truly a people-free oasis for gannets. While visiting Heimaey I hope to take a boat tour around Surtsey, also featured in Eyjar. The aerial shots enable the viewer to truly see the volcanic nature that is Iceland. One island, Bjarnarey, looks as if the volcanic eruption that created it hasn’t finished bubbling and spewing out lava. And the sheer cliffs on some of these islands! They reminded me of the Faroes, equally green and cliffy. I cannot wait to see the islands of Iceland.