Hawaii Books

This small history of two Koreans who met and created a life together in Hawaii offers fascinating insights into many tidbits of the American experience. It is told in a touchingly straight-forward way by a Korean-American physician about her own parents and family.

Starting in Korea during the years before World War II, the story follows the author's mother and father as they leave behind their their homeland and journey seperately to Hawaii, where they meet each other, marry and raise a family. The book's charm lies not in any epic passages or literary fireworks, but in the very simplicity of the story and the essential ordinariness of the protagonists.

Although the homeland and culture of the the author's parents are quite different from typical Americans, their struggle to survive, prosper, and raise a family in a new environment is simply a new face on an essential story. It reflects the life and aspirations of millions of immigrant families from all over the world who left behind everything familiar and came to America to pursue dreams unattainable in their land of birth. It is the story of the ancestors of most Americans.

This beautiful tale of endurance and love follows a man and a woman from their seperate roots in Korea to their meeting in a far land. Colorfully written, the book offers glimpses of traditional culture and a history of Hawaiian immigration. This is a moving tribute to the heart-wrenching obstacles faced by those in search of a better life. Bravo!

This is a wonderful book about the journey of two Korean immigrants to the United States and how they meet, fall in love, and raise a family in America. It gives a view of Korean life at the turn of the century and of life in Hawaii through WWII. Whether you are Korean American, an immigrant (or child of one)from another country, or simply looking for a heart-warming story, this book should be especially interesting.

It is a shame that Jocelyn's wonderful, dreamy love letter to living in Hawaii is out of print. For starters, the dust jacket is pretty enough, but the book itself is bound in a handsome Hawaiian fabric print. Inside, colors jump off the page as homes ranging from surfers' one-room beach town digs to graceful Nuuanu mansions set you to fantasizing about living in Paradise. Chapters are divided into such themes as paniolo [cowboy] homes, mountain homes, beach homes, contemporary, plantation houses ranging in style from bare bones to elegant...the entire gamut is covered. There are delightful details and tableaux pictured everywhere, showing home dwellers' tabletop arrangements, Hawaiiana collections, hand crafted koa wood furniture, beautiful one of a kind local crafts...I could go on and on about the richness and variety of material in Under The Hula Moon. I write Hawaii guidebooks for a living and spend a lot of time in the islands, looking at the outside of peoples' homes, wondering what's going on inside. Since I'm not the type to just knock on strangers' doors to ask for a tour, Jocelyn has taken me into wonderful places I would otherwise never see.from0AAnyone who has fallen under Hawaii's spell and has ever fantasized about moving to the islands will treasure this book and spend many long hours with it in a favorite reading spot. Few books have given me the years of enjoyment that Jocelyn Fujii's has, and until some publisher has the good sense to bring it back into print, it is worth the seach to find a copy.

If you looking for something that will catch your eye, and that you can just sit down, relax, and browse ... then this is book for you! It's a great book have around for others to look at and see Hawai`i through other people's eyes. It's always great to see how many different people can find the beauty in this paradise.

I am sorry that I generously gave out as many copies of this far out book without saving a single copy for myself, because now I can't find it anywhere except at my friends' homes. And they all want to keep it as a reference for their visitors from the mainland.

The second of Chang-po's writtings with commentary by Liu I Ming. The beautifull prose partnered with Liu I Ming's elucidations make this book, as it did with the inner teachings of Taoism, indespensible. This is almost a Rosetta Stone of ancient Taoist metaphor and ties together so much of the old wisdom teachings. "Inner Taoism" if left to the imaginings of the human ego can be misconstrued by some and the intent distorted. These books if read and appreciated in their ENTIRETY will absolutely point to the truth of essence and bypass the energetics they are too often associated with.
This book is a gift. Read it with apprecaition.

One of the few texts translated into English from a Taoist master who pursued celestial immortality. Students of Taoism who internally steam their sexual energy in an attempt to give birth to the spirit often wish that they could compare notes with a master of a by-gone era. This is their opportunity! One must ignore the commentary beneath each verse, however, as it is provided years later by a Taoist Scholar who either doesn't have a clue as to the meaning of the verses of Chang Po-Tuan, or wishes to protect the information they contain. While talking in code, Chang Po-Tuan's work IS decipherable if one knows the actual physical and energetic practices. This knowledge is often labeled as the "Kan & Li work" by modern Taoists and can be learned from such contemporary masters as Mantak Chia.

"The body is just a lodging; the innkeepers name is Illuminator. The Illuminator neither comes nor goes, so we know it has no birth or death. If you ask what the Illuminator is like, any description is wrong; every act and everything we see is neither the same nor different. Seeing the acts and things, each one is a Buddha and a disciple." P.174

This book is a guide for those experiencing the Tao as illuminator; it tells you what can happen along The Way by using highly poetic language, leaving you to sort out the meaning through your personal experience of the Tao. If none of that makes sense, this might not be the book for you, but then again ...

If you value highly imaginative Asian poetry, you will enjoy the Chang Po-tuan text. "Quiet and clamor, speech and silence, are originally the same thing - Why bother to talk of a dream in a dream?" You might want to read his stuff first; it's spelled out in all CAPITAL LETTERS. The commentary by Liu I-ming was excellent, but it was sometimes jarring to read him right after Po-tuan's poetry.

Jungians will find this book an interesting addition to their study of Alchemy, finding somewhat similar to The Secret of the Golden Flower. The Po-tuan text is rich will Alchemical poetry.

Mahalo to the University of Hawaii Press for publishing this book, and special thanks to Tom Cleary for providing us with this translation.

Very comprehensive guide for those of us who love to haunt used bookstores in CA (et al). Useful information such as inventory sizes, specialities, phone numbers, special services, and more. Organized by state, city, and also several indices.

An invaluable take-along tote for any who consider a used book store visit an essential part of the trip. Choose the revised, expanded Used Book Lover's Guide To The Pacific Coast States if traveling in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska or Hawaii: it includes number of volumes, store specialty, and candid comments if the store was visited.

This newly updated and expanded addition of The Used Book Lover's Guide To The Pacific Coast States continues to insure its preeminence as the most comprehensive and important guide to the used bookstores and dealers in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii. Featured are 1,500 used book dealers conveniently grouped by location and category; a Specialty Index to help locate dealers specializing in a particular area of interest; easy to follow travel directions for getting where you want to go; twenty-four city, regional and state maps to aid in planning book hunting trips; and practical comments about shops based on the David and Susan Siegal's personal visits. If you are a true bibliophile or antiquarian book dealer traveling the area, don't leave home without your copy of The Used Book Lover's Guide To The Pacific Coast States!

Mimi Herberts book explores deeply the world of the Wayang Golek, weaving scholarly facts and personal accounts into a tapestry as rich as the art it examines. Whether doing research on Eastern puppet traditions or simply pursuing personal interests, her work offers a fully comprehensive tour of one of Indonesias oldest artforms. Students, scholars and even museum book stores would do well to have a copy on their shelves.

I am Balinese and collect and sell wayang golek puppets.

I hadn't been able to find a really good book on the subject - but now I have. I certainly recommend this one - the text is never boring. The author quotes real puppeteers and traces their histories. Unfortunately the art is dying out a bit, but luckily there are some young puppeteers, so there is hope.

The photographs are superb and the background stories of the epics and the characters in them are excellent.

Most of the puppeteers are men - but not all - there is a very impressive American lady puppeteer too.

This is not just a coffee table book. Highly recommended.

Mimi Herbert and Nur S. Rahardjo with Univeristy of Hawaii Press and the Lontar Foundation have produced an excellent and beautiful book on the Wayang Golek of Indonesia. All students of Indonesia and those interested in the arts of Asia should have this book in their library. The photography is superb and the text is well written and comprehensive. If you have an interest in this subject BUY THIS BOOK. You will not be disappointed.

Harden has produced a book that is somewhat of a "coffee table" book in style and format; the print is widely spaced and the photographs and the layout are very professionally done. The Hawaiians profiled here are those whose names and pictures you are likely to see in the big Honolulu papers; people whom she definitely considers to be Kupuna. Her book covers such well-known people as Margaret Machado, Winona Beamer, Kekuni Blaisdell, George Na`ope, Herb Kane and Nainoa Thompson. All together, Voices of Wisdom profiles 24 different people.

Harden's format consists of a mix of biographical material, interviews and historical background information, with only a little original material in the form of chants and poems. There are a lot of directly quoted interviews, which is a real plus. It's very interesting and gives the reader excellent insights into the thoughts and feelings of the people interviewed, though at times, the quotations have a little bit of a disjointed feel to them (I suspect that she had to do a lot of editing). Her chapter headings include Nature; Spirituality and Healing; Preservation and History; Activism, Dance, Chant, Genealogy, Music; Arts and Crafts; Canoe and Next Generation.

In contrast to other similar books, which tend to do it the other way around, Voices of Wisdom is a collection of 24 verbal portraits of Hawaiian people that also happens to teach the reader about Hawaiian culture and values. But Harden leaves that task to the people she portrays, and they do it through their own words. This fine book represents a new genre of Hawaiian cultural material and we can all hope that it starts a trend!

THIS IS A FANTASTIC COMPILATION OF INTERVIEWS ABOUT CRITICAL ASPECTS IN HAWAII. IT ALLOWS YOU TO FEEL LIKE YOU JUST SPOKE TO LOCAL HAWAIIANS AND REALLY GET INSIGHT INTO THEIR POLITICS, SPIRITUALITY, CUSTOMS, ETC. IT IS WELL WRITTEN AND A FUN READ. IT HAS HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE AND IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL WHO LIVE IN OR VISIT HAWAII (TOURIST, PERSONAL, OR ACADEMIC). AN EXCELLENT REFERENCE.

This book reminds me what it means to be Kanaka maoli esspecially in the current time, It reminds us of where we came form and who we are to be, This book is inspirational and a must have.

Wan-nani: High Chiefess of Hawaii: Her Epic Journey is a novel of awesome beauty and power. It is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love. Linda Ballou's powerful storytelling talents, her understanding of human nature, and her knowledge of Hawaii folklore, take us on an amazing journey into Hawaii's ancient past as she re-creates island life as it truly might have been. Wan-nani is a great summer read. Kudos to Ballou on her first novel.

Wai-Nani, High Chiefess of Hawai'i: Her Epic Journey By Linda Ballou This, the author's first book, is a masterpiece and a fascinating read. The historic novel tells the dramatic and heart warming love story of Wai-Nani. By weaving the ancient legends of Old Hawaii into this compelling story, Ballou captivates the reader with her beautiful descriptions and very real characters, who come alive in your imagination. The first few pages were a bit hard to read because the author has interjected real Hawaiian words into sentences in which the meaning is evident, but once I got the rhythm I could hardly put the book down. It is an excellent read, especially if you have been or plan to go to Hawaii.

I love Hawai'i, so when I found Wai-nani: High Chiefess of Hawai'i - Her Epic Journey by Linda Ballou, I couldn't wait to read it. I was not disappointed. I raced through it, enjoying every vivid moment and cannot say enough about it.

Linda has captured the beauty of Hawai'i and the ancient lore and legend that makes Hawai'ian history so enchanting. Her main character, Wai-nani, is fourteen when the story begins, and we follow her as she becomes the first wife of the soon-to-be high chief of Hawai'i. (based upon King Kamehameha) Her gift is in the water, swimming with the porpoises, befriending them as she catches a fin and flies through the waves with them.

Using her instincts and wisdom, Wai-nani remains her husband's most trusted advisor and one of his favorite wives throughout his life, while he wrestles with change and the impact of the arrival of the white Christian men who bring both the positive ideas and the decadence of the new world.

An important aspect of any book for me is the quality of writing, and Linda is a faulous writer: "The red apple of the ohi'a tree tasted sweet in my mouth as I watched the drifting plumes of Pele, Goddess of the Volcano, cast shadows upon the shimmering sea. Frothy surf reached my ankles then receded, leaving tiny bubbles of foam upon a blank tablet of sand. The crescent sail of an outrigger flared upon the horizon." This is the opening paragraph of the book and it only gets better from here.

Don't miss it!

This by far it the best Chinese software I own. Currently I'm a Chinese language student and I use this software daily. I particularly like the fact that I can look up a character and watch the program write it out for me. This has helped a lot in making sure I'm using the correct stroke order.

There are a lot of positives to this program. Many of which have already been mentioned in previous reviews. Yes, the price is up there, but the benefits outweigh the costs ten fold. This software has been invaluable to my studies.

I'm using it on Vista and have had no problems running it.

The Wenlin program is my constant Chinese companion. It is simply the best language software I have ever seen. It contains a large online dictionary with both old and contemporary terms. The online dictonary is a students' and dictionary-lovers' delight. Definitions for words and many common phrases with information on related character combinations, stroke order demos for all characters, pronunciation (pinyin AND sound), written character history and breakdown for each item and ability to search stored literature for examples. Move the mouse over any character and you see pronunciation and meaning for the character or for the common phrase under the mouse. Click on the character and you open the dictionary entry for that character. Type control-L and you get a little dialogue that will let you type in a word to translate from English or pinyin. Type in pinyin with a tone number and hit control-T and you get a list of possible characters, most common ones first; hit return and the highlighted character is entered in the text.

Files saved by Wenlin can be read by MS Word for further word processing (you need Chinese fonts for Word). You can cut and paste from a web page or an email into Wenlin and build a translation with the help of the dictionary. I use Wenlin to help me compose emails to my Chinese tutor, then I put it into
Word as an attachment or just use alt-PrtScr to grab the image of the sentence and paste it into the email -- don't have to worry about email or font compatibility that way.

You can work in either simplified or traditional character mode; both styles are displayed. You can input pinyin or actual characters stroke-by-stroke. Stroke entry is best with a graphic input pad, but I can input characters with the mouse and my very clumsy hand and the program guesses my character more times than any other character entry program (including English handwriting recognizers) I have ever used.

The program comes with a lot of online Chinese literature, graded from easy to difficult.

I own several good paper dictionaries, four Chinese courses (Pimsleur, Ni Hao, Integrated Chinese, Connections) and a couple of PDA programs. Wenlin and Pimsleur are the indispensable ones. Wenlin seems expensive, but it is worth every penny. I hesitated to buy it for several weeks because of the price. But in the end, it turned out to be a bargain because of its functionality and quantity of material. If they ever come out with a PDA version, I will spring for that, too. I have bought several language programs for computer over the years. Most have been a profound disappointment. This and the Oxford superlex 3-language dictionary are the only ones I have kept and continue to use.

Compatibility: Windows, Mac and Linux (under wine or Crossover Office). On linux, make sure you have ALSA drivers for wine sound.

I have been using Wenlin since version #1. It is now up to version #3.2.
I use it daily for when I am doing online-chat with people in China. They say something I don't understand, so I cut-n-paste what they wrote into Wenlin and get a very accurate idea of what words I misunderstood.
It goes into word roots, shows how the strokes are made, gives both traditional and simplified characters, and many other things like that.
While it may seem behind the times with its DOS-like user interface, it is not lacking.
It is a little pricy, but worth every cent for the serious student of Chinese.

There have been many movies about December 7th 1941 and Pearl Harbor. None of them come close to capturing the deep personal essence found in Dick Spangler's great book, West Point to Pearl Harbor. This is a true classic and a must read for anyone with an interest in defining moments in history

I was only four when Pearl Harbor happened but I still remember my parents' concern about the terrible event. I have, however, very clear memories of VJ and VE day. This book by Dick Spangler is a welcome addition to the wealth of books written about the Day that lives on in Infamy. His personal interviews jump off the pages with vivid recollections. Highly recommended not only for historians and military types, but anyone interested in one of the most important events in American history.

WEST POINT OF PEARL HARBOR is military autobiography at its best, telling of a child's memories of the Japanese attack, its effect upon the Spangler family and the survivors of Pearl Harbor, and the lasting lessons from that attack. The private journals of the author's father's life, including letters written between his parents, compliment these eyewitness accounts of surviving soldiers and sailors, making for a vivid presentation liberally peppered with black and white photos throughout.

After reading reviews of Chip Hughes' two novels--Murder on Molokai and Wipeout--I sent for both of them and have just completed reading them both. I love reading mysteries set in Hawaii and these books fit that description to a "T". They're fast-paced, great island descriptions, keep you guessing and eager for more! I understand his next novel will be out in the fall and I can't wait for it to be released. I highly recommend both--Murder on Molokai is his first novel and gets you acquainted with the surfing detective. Wipeout continues the adventures of Kai Cooke (the surfing detective).

As a frequent traveler to the Hawaiian Islands, I enjoy reading well-written novels set in Hawaii. The trouble is that it is hard to find a really good one. Last year, I found one. It was "Murder On Moloka'i" by Chip Hughes. I couldn't wait for another book.
I got my wish this year with the release of his newest book, "Wipeout."
It was every bit as good (if not better) than his first novel. It tells another story of the everyday Hawaiian PI, Kai Cooke. Fans of Dashiell Hammitt and Magnum, P.I. alike will enjoy this character. I won't spoil the story for you, but I will tell you that if you want to read a wonderfully fun and entertaining novel, then Wipeout is for you! I strongly urge you to buy this book!!

As a frequent traveler to Hawaii and a big mystery fan I like to combine the two and read books with Hawaiian settings. So often it quickly becomes clear that the author's use of a Hawaiian setting is a gimmick and/or based on travel brochure myth of what The Islands are like. Not so at all with Chip Hughes' books in the Surfing Detective series, Murder on Molokai and Wipeout. I was recently in Hawaii and was scanning bookshop for local authors and found the first two books in this series. Two days later after reading them both straight through, I was surprised and delighted to find both books rich in Hawaiian flavor and well written with interesting stories and characters. I highly recommend both books for fans of Hawaii, mystery detective PI fiction or just good books to read!