The title is a bit of a play on words, in that it isn't referring to islands that are out there waiting to be discovered, but islands that were claimed to have been discovered and then couldn't be corroborated later. Tallack also refers to them as "ex-isles" a few times, which made me chuckle.
The book is broken up into small sections, focusing on categories like islands that were "discovered" during early European imperialist era, or fabled lands that it was believed sank back into the sea, or places people flat out made up so they could name them after themselves or some wealthy dope they were trying to butter up.
Each island only gets about three pages, but I guess when you're dealing with locations that might have only been described once, there's only so much you can say. Guy claims he finds island, describes its location and bizarre wildlife, no one ever finds said island again. It's kind of cool that it was still happening as recently as 2000. People finding out there's no island where their map claims there is an island.
It's far from in-depth on any of the islands, but it's a decent quick overview. Some of the islands have had entire books devoted to the history and mythology around them, which Tallack lists at the end of the book. So this isn't a bad resource to use to find options for more information on places that interest you.
'The story of Hy Brasil demonstrates a problem common to many of the places in this book: namely, it is hard to establish facts about phantoms. Much has been written about the island over the centuries, and much of what has been written is certainly wrong. The traditional story, repeated in countless books and articles, begins with cartography and then moves backwards into folklore.'
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