Alexander McCall Smith buys private islands

Bestselling Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith has bought a chain of uninhabited islands off the coast of Scotland, the Telegraph reports.

Smith, author of “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” mysteries, discovered the remote islands on a series of sailing and picnicking trips with his wife, and paid about $460,000 for them -- a real bargain as islands go.

The chain, in the Hebrides, is called the Cains of Coll, and can only be reached by boat -- and then only when the weather is favorable. Among the wildlife that calls the islands home are seals, terns, guillemots, porpoises, sharks, and minke whales.

Smith, who lives in Edinburgh, said he intends to use the islands as a retreat but will protect them as a nature preserve. One island, called the Isle of Coll, includes a house with views of the surrounding islands of Skye, Rum, Muck, Eigg, and Mull.

“I intend to look after them and do nothing with them,” Smith said. “I am going to protect them for what I hope will be forever.”

Although it is a great deal rarer for an author to own his own island than an actor, rock star, or hedge fund manager, Smith -- whose books have sold about 20 million copies -- is not the only writer to own an island. James Martin, Pulitzer-prize-nominated author of “The Wired Society,” is said to live on a private island in Bermuda. John T. McCutcheon, the Chicago Tribune correspondent and political cartoonist, once owned Salt Cay island in the Bahamas.

But Ernest Hemingway, who lived on Cuba and Key West, only owned his corners of them.

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