Here's a list of our favorite books and music to get you ready for your trip. they are available on Amazon just kick on the Author. The first two are a must for every trip.
Enjoy!
Hawaii: The Big Island Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook
(Paperback) by Andrew Doughty (Author)
In this second of their series of guides to the islands of Hawaii, Doughty and Friedman (The Ultimate Kaua'i Guidebook, Wizard, 1994) have succeeded in telling us everything there is to know about traveling on the island of Hawaii (the "big island" only, not the entire state). They include basic facts about the history and geology, language and pronunciation, sights, beaches, activities, adventures, dining, and lodging. Each of these topics is discussed in detail for each of seven divisions of the big island. The authors relate not only where to go but how to get there and whether or not the place is a must or a skip, offering candid evaluations of each view, beach, and restaurant. Written in clear and lively language, with abundant color illustrations, many excellent maps, a good table of contents, and a complete index, this book is essential reading for those traveling to the island.
Hapa (CD Hapa)
The second time I was in Hawaii in 1996, I was introduced to this album by staff at the hotel where I was staying. It is a stunning debut album by two immensely talented musicians and singers. Hapa (which means part or half and is usually used in terms like hapa haole - half white) is a duo of singer/guitarists. One is Hawaiian and one is a haole, hence the group name. The music on the CD is a combination of original contemporary Hawaiian songs and instrumental cuts. From the first cut the album is a wonder. The guitar work is beautiful and both singers have marvelously sweet voices, familiar with traditional Hawaiian style and yet fresh and contemporary.
Light Years: A Girlhood in Hawai'i (Paperback)
by Susanna Moore (Author)
When Moore, a novelist, was growing up in Hawaii, in the early fifties, it still took five days to reach the islands by sea from San Francisco. Yet life there for haoles (foreigners) was not unlike that of bluebloods summering in Maine: Moore and her four siblings roamed the landscape at will, while their mother, prone to nervous breakdowns, attempted to outfit them in seersucker shorts. Moore’s recollections are faithful to a child’s purview; she was shocked to learn, later, that "only haoles were allowed to live in the most desirable neighborhoods." Interwoven in the text are excerpts from Darwin and Woolf, among others.
Moloka'i (Paperback)
by Alan Brennert (Author) "Later, when memory was all she had to sustain her, she would come to cherish it: Old Honolulu as it was then, as it would..."
Compellingly original in its conceit, Brennert's sweeping debut novel tracks the grim struggle of a Hawaiian woman who contracts leprosy as a child in Honolulu during the 1890s and is deported to the island of Moloka'i, where she grows to adulthood at the quarantined settlement of Kalaupapa. Rachel Kalama is the plucky, seven-year-old heroine whose family is devastated when first her uncle Pono and then she develop leprous sores and are quarantined with the disease. While Rachel's symptoms remain mild during her youth, she watches others her age dying from the disease in near total isolation from family and friends. Rachel finds happiness when she meets Kenji Utagawa, a fellow leprosy victim whose illness brings shame on his Japanese family. After a tender courtship, Rachel and Kenji marry and have a daughter, but the birth of their healthy baby brings as much grief as joy, when they must give her up for adoption to prevent infection. The couple cope with the loss of their daughter and settle into a productive working life until Kenji tries to stop a quarantined U.S. soldier from beating up his girlfriend and is tragically killed in the subsequent fight. The poignant concluding chapters portray Rachel's final years after sulfa drugs are discovered as a cure, leaving her free to abandon Moloka'i and seek out her family and daughter. Brennert's compassion makes Rachel a memorable character, and his smooth storytelling vividly brings early 20th-century Hawaii to life. Leprosy may seem a macabre subject, but Brennert transforms the material into a touching, lovely account of a woman's journey as she rises above the limitations of a devastating illness.
The Secrets and Mysteries of Hawaii: A Call to the Soul (Paperback)
by Pila (Author), Pila Chiles (Author), Pila of Hawaii (Author)
I "stumbled" onto Secrets & Mysteries of Hawaii on my first trip to the Big island. I couldn't put the book down...read it in 2 days. I found it confirming of my own experiences on other islands and other trips to Hawaii; I found it breathtaking in its descriptions of the energies of the islands and the interconnectedness with the rest of the earth. I have told many people about it. I have given copies to people...but my copy never is far from my side.
If you haven't been to Hawaii and want to know why it "pulls" so many, this is the book for you. If you are planning a trip to Hawaii, this is a "must read." If you have been to Hawaii, and know it is "home," this is also a "must read."
Hawaii: A Novel (Paperback)
by James A. Michener (Author)
Michener, the supreme storyteller, created some really memorable characters in this monster of a novel. The genre of blockbuster historical novels can seem somewhat dated (viz. the mammoth novels of Mitchell, Ferber, McCullough, Caldwell and Follett) but they are definitely delicious if you get a taste for them. Dated or not, Hawaii is a gripping tale of not-so-angelic missionaries, struggling immigrants and early Polynesian settlers. The characters are absolutely unforgettable. I particularly liked the section of the book where the missionaries run headlong into the traditions of the Polynesian people, whether insisting they wear confining clothing in the tropical heat, or that they should quit their charming and practical tradition of dancing, swimming and surfing in the buff. The missionaries stubbornly eat dried apples shipped to them across the sea, and scorn the richly nutritious native fruits and vegetables unfamiliar to them. They wilt in their long underwear, donned by the season. They try hard to bring a foreign world to their religion in the belief it will benefit the people, but when two vastly different cultures clash, it is inevitably tragic. Michener writes about this clash in vivid, sometimes shocking detail. This book has been filmed, used as a basis for a musical but nothing compares to reading the original. I couldn't put it down.
New Pocket Hawaiian Dictionary:
With a Concise Grammar and Given Names in Hawaiian (Paperback)
by Mary Kawena Pukui (Author), Samuel H. Elbert (Author)
The Hawaiian Dictionary, by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel Elbert, has for many years been the standard work of reference for the Hawaiian language. Based on frequency of usage and cultural importance, 10,800 entries, from the 41,500 in the revised and enlarged edition of 1986, have been selected for inclusion in the New Pocket Hawaiian Dictionary. In a compact and portable format, this dictionary up-dates scientific and common names of plants and animals; Hawaiian equivalents of given names; words borrowed from other languages; numbering and counting; practical phrases, and much more. The chapter on grammar, explained in nontechnical terms, includes a pronunciation guide. This convenient book will be appreciated by residents, visitors, and beginning students of Hawaiian alike.
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