An Island to Myself
The Place of Solitude in an Active Life
Michael N. McGregor
Paperback
ISBN 9781958972748
$22.95 US
eBook available
May 13, 2025
The power of solitude to deepen a life
In his twenties, Michael N. McGregor traveled to the remote Greek island of Patmos to spend two winter months alone, 6,000 miles from home. It was a time before cellphones and the internet, when even a phone call was costly. Although he expected his solitude to be meaningful, he wasn’t prepared for how it would change him.
Before his island days, McGregor had spent years reporting on the world’s poor and months on the road. As he settled into days of rigorous writing, evening walks through fierce wind, and nights full of memories, dreams and spiritual encounters, he learned that solitude can be difficult and even dangerous, but also awe-inspiring and life-altering.
When he returned to his active life, McGregor sought solitude wherever he could—in nature, in libraries, in silent spaces—before returning to Patmos forty years later to repeat his youthful experiment.
Michael N. McGregor is a Seattle-based author and journalist. His first book, Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax, received an Excellence in Publishing Award from the Association of Catholic Publishers and was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award and other prizes. Korza Books published his first novel, The Last Grand Tour, earlier this year.
“In this inspiring and hope-filled journey into the heart of solitude, McGregor takes us to the hinterlands of grace, and in the healing silence of a still heart and mind, we discover the antidote to a loneliness that plagues many of us these days, fed by consumption, competition, and a tendency to commodify relationships.” —Patrick Hannon, author of Sacrament: Personal Encounters with Memories, Wounds, Dreams, and Unruly Hearts
“To dwell in solitude without feeling lonely, one must be open to a presence that’s inaccessible in the midst of even the dearest human companions. In search of that elusive presence, Michael N. McGregor has repeatedly taken leave from loved ones and workaday tasks, seeking stillness in a library, a park, a rustic cabin, a borrowed apartment, a Greek island, and other retreats. Over the course of decades, from restless youth to grateful elder, he has gathered insights into his character, his values, his past and possible futures. By accompanying him in his search, we may be inspired to undertake solitary sojourns of our own.” —Scott Russell Sanders, author of The Way of Imagination
“Solitude is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language. Many of us would prefer to avoid being alone. But when we allow solitude to take us by the hand, we realize it is a guide, a doorway we step through to discover the most consequential person in our life: our self. As we follow along in this page-turner of a book—from the Greek island of Patmos to the San Juan Islands, Whidbey Island, and a myriad of other places McGregor has experienced solitude—we start to understand that being still is also a way to keep moving, to keep going deeper into the discovery of our true purpose and being.” —Judith Valente, former faith and values correspondent for PBS-TV, author of The Art of Pausing and How to Be
“I finished An Island to Myself within the whirlwind of my screen-mediated over-extended life, one where my harried attention leaps quickly here then there and back again. Yet McGregor’s book is not finished with me. Its steady openhearted questions about fulfillment, gratitude, beauty, love, and meaning still call to me from within. His patient and humble account of the difficulties and rewards of seeking solitude, not in order to be alone and separate, but ultimately to love and connect more fully and more deeply with life, is one I won’t soon forget.” —David Naimon, co-author of Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations On Writing, and host of the radio show and podcast, Between The Covers
“Michael N. McGregor’s forty-year courtship of solitude is exacting, frank about the paradoxes of the journey, utterly determined to see his investigation through, and faithful to a helpful decision to include the journey’s contradictions. Bolstered by a counterpoint of epigraphs on solitude ranging from Wordsworth to Einstein, Epictetus to Proust, Anne Frank to Susan Sontag, Joan Didion to Rumi, Franz Kafka to bell hooks, and more, journey’s end brings McGregor to conclusions that are thoroughly flight-tested, uniquely his own, and invaluable to lovers of solitude counter-balanced with active lives.” —David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and Sun House
Blurbs for the author’s first book:
“Those who know him only as a close friend of Thomas Merton will be delighted with the person they find in these pages: an influential poet, a voice for peace, a wanderer and seeker after truth. Many sought Lax out at his Patmos home; McGregor has made his wisdom available to all.” –Kathleen Norris, author of Dakota and Cloister Walk
“Pure Act, in its offering of a detailed recounting of [Robert Lax’s] life and an acute presentation and analysis of his too-neglected poetry, gives him to us: the gift of a human being unlike any other.” –C.K. Williams, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
