SOURCE: Frater, Alexander. “Curmudgeon in a Canoe.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (21 June 1992): 1, 8.

In the following positive review, Frater praises the insights, accessibility, and humor of The Happy Isles of Oceania.

Paul Theroux's almost Napoleonic progress across the planet has taken him through Europe and Asia (The Great Railway Bazaar), China (Riding the Iron Rooster) and the Americas (The Old Patagonian Express). His latest travel dispatches [The Happy Isles of Oceania] are filed from an area which, almost uniquely for him, is entirely devoid of trains. The islands of Oceania must be negotiated by other means, and, this time, his chosen mode of transport is the canoe.

Actually, it's a collapsible kayak, seagoing and German-built, and whenever he flies to a new island group, he paddles as far from the trappings of civilization as time and tide allow. He thus lands, and lives, on islands few outsiders ever...