Hawaii Books

in his empathic and diverse oral histories of some mahu and transgender individuals on Oahu, andrew matzner opens a window on hawai'i lesser known cultural features. of great interest to the academic community in gender studies, as well as non-specialists interested in Hawaiian culture.

I recently had the opportunity to read "'O Au No Keia: Voice's From Hawaii's Mahu and Transgender Community". As someone with no transgender feelings, it was a glimpse into a part of our community that I knew very little about. Its a very real book, written by the transgendered people themselves. Mr. Matzner interviewed a number of transgendered people on O'ahu, edited what they had wrote and then gave them a chance to review, correct and add to what they had said. So rather than being a book about transgender people, its really a book by transgendered people.

Their stories were real and often touching. Their feelings and lives, while outwardly very different than what I've ever experienced, were so real and human that it would be almost impossible to not understand and feel for them. They openly share both the good and bad parts of the lives in an effort to get those of us outside the transgender community to see how their stories could be anyone's story. They succeed. Its not an cheap book (almost [$$$]) but its worth every penny if you want to better understand our friends in the trangender community.

Delightful read! My husband & I contemplating a trip to the Oahu, to celebrate our 60th Birthdays, so we have been searching for a Dining Guide. We hit the jack pot when we found this little treasure. In addition to providing all of the practical information: dress code, price range, type of cuisine, the authors have given each dining establishment a personality in the Impression Section. With so many possibilities, it will help us narrow down our choices. The book is well organized and user friendly. Jacquelyn Tarpy

Very well written and an excellent guide for this island. I wish they had included St. Germaines (great homemade bread sandwiches). These authors are the BEST. I wish them continued success and I hope that book and department stores will think strongly about having MEET THE AUTHORS day with book signings.....I have met them and they are a delightful couple that truly cares about the islands.

This book is absolutely astounding. The sights in this book are magnificent and will definitely make you want to visit Hawaii!! All the pictures are rich in color and detail. It feels like some of these sights are but a few feet in front of you and you could touch them. Wow, absolutely awesome! I highly recommend this book!

This book has all aerial shots of all of the islands. You will not be disappointed with this book. It also documents the geological origins of the islands (the first inhabitants and the first immigrant settlers) It includes 220 photographs and has 256 pages. They spent more than 200 hours in the air taking these wonderful photographs. This one is a absolute must for all of you Hawaii lovers.

The Pacific Ocean is Earth's largest single feature and covers a third of the planet's surface. But photographer Peter Hendrie has found inspiration enough to add a whole new dimension to the beauty and power of its landscape and the richness of its cultures. It's a dimension that allows him to transform landscape and lifestyle from the merely pictorial to a vibrant experience of the Pacific legend. His pictures capture the piquancy of the moment the image was taken,prompting envy of the photographer's vision plus a valuable insight into how to read such evocative images. No other places on Earth possess the enduring magic of Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia, and Hendrie powerfully reinforces their merger of romance and reality.
I rate Pacific Journeys - 5/5

The Pacific Ocean is Earth's single largest feature and covers a third of its surface. But photographer Peter Hendrie has found inspiration enough to apply a whole new dimension to the beauty and power of its panorama and the richness of its cultures. It is a dimension that allows him to transform landscape and lifestyle from the purely pictorial to a vibrant experience of the Pacific legend. His images possess the piquancy of the very moments he captured them, prompting an envy of his vision and a thoroughly-satisfying lesson in how to read evocative images. Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia have no equals when it comes to enduring magic, and Hendrie brilliantly reinforces their unique merger of romance and reality.
I rate Pacific Journeys - 5/5

I picked this book up at the library and was stunned by the pictures. It inspired me to become involved with the local paddling community on Oahu, a decision that has reaped more blessings than can be imagined. It also inspired me to relook at my own photography and strive for even more imaginative opportunities such as Joss has found. This is definitely a coffee table book, however, as the text is fairly light. For something more in depth on the local paddling scene I liked 'Molokai-O'ahu through the Years' by Peter Caldwell.

"Paddling in Hawai'i" is absolutely beautiful; the photographs are stunning! Not only is it an excellent collection of Joss's remarkable talents as a photographer, but a treasure of the ocean and Hawaiian culture too.

Any rational person who has seen an invasive species, alien to the environment it is over-taking and wiping-out the unique flora and fauna of an ecosystem found no where else in the world would not think twice about wanting to do something about it. This author elequantly draws irrational conclusions in hopes of trying to make a buck to support his estate in Hawaii. Putting money into the pocket of this author, who does not have any formal education in ecology, is like putting a gun to the very fragile, few remaining, endigenous flora and fauna that are found in Hawai`i. Get your information from someone who cares more about the ecosystem and not from this author. Definitly a poorly written book constructed to mislead the reader....

WOW! Great research. Book is packed with great info & facts the STATE & County don't want you to know. I live & farm on the Big Island in "Coqui central" (Puna) and I know these frogs provide a valuable service by consuming mosquitos, termites, fire ants even coqui eggs, they provide their own population control! Mr & Mrs Singer write with terrific humor & understanding of the subject matter.

The authors have done an excellent job exposing the flaws in the "coqui war" that has led to more environmental destruction than the "invasive species" it was intended to destroy. Hawaii's government and media have demonized a tiny frog that is beloved wherever it exists and have ignored many other, far worse "invasive" species. The authors put forth plausible explanations for this irrational behavior. Hopefully this little book will help Hawaiians to have some "aloha" when it comes to this peaceful little amphibian that wants nothing more than to coexist with humans and other organisms that love their new island home.

Sometimes the best way to learn about something is through photographs, and this book certainly delivers. There are many photographs in this book that I have never seen before. The captions that go along with each photograph describe in detail the action taking place in the photograph. This book also makes an excellent companion to other books about Pearl Harbor that contain text.

First of all you should be aware that this is primarily a picture book. There is NO unifying text from page to page or chapter to chapter. It IS a VISUAL history with many, many photographs, some classic some I have never seen before. All photos have a nice caption that some times runs to 60-70 words and does a fine job of placing the action in perspective. The author also accompanies the the photos with biographical sketches of the main figures in the PH story and gives a summary of the medal of honor winners at PH. All in all a very good book that is light years ahead of the movie by the same name and should NOT be confused with the Disney version. Of especially good interest are the maps and diagrams including one detailing the location and fate of all of the ships in PH. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

this book not only shows that roosevelt"s war cabinet knew about the impending attack on pearl harbor but actually invited and provoked japan to attack via diplomatic and economic sanctions.this book exposes deceit at the highest level of govt.a must read!excellent.

This text, with a 1946 copyright and published as a hardcover in 1947 (Devin-Adair), has now been released as a 50th Anniversary Edition in 1991 (Institute of Historical Review).

It remains today, in 2007, a quintessential source for any Pearl Harbor cognoscente. Facts is facts.

To be appreciated is that Morgenstern's effort is prior to almost all other Pearl Harbor works and is largely based on the flurry of "official" investigations and their findings which took place in the 1940s.

There are today obviously a number of revisions needed to this book based on the more recent research. For example, the efforts of authors such as Toland (e.g., Seaman "Z" and the Dutch officer Ranneft), Stinnett and Wilford (extensive use of FOIA materials on IJN codes and radio intelligence), and the far newer work of Victor (e.g., FDR ordered the Pacific Fleet to Hawaii, ordered Stark to begin the ABCD talks, ordered convoying in the Atlantic, ordered Hull to give the Japanese the ten-point ultimatum, whereabouts of FDR and War Cabinet the night of 12.6.41, foreknowledge that Germany would declare war on the US, ..., etc.) reveal much that Morgenstern did not uncover. But, such is the role of historical pursuit.

Of particular interest are his conclusions as presented in Chapter Twenty - "Who Was Guilty?" The ending sentences are : " ... The people were told that acts which were equivalent to war were intended to keep the nation out of war. Constitutional processes existed only to be circumvented, until finally the war-making power of Congress was reduced to the act of ratifying an accomplished fact."

This text makes so clear the obvious. And, for Americans, this, given their past history of wars since WWII, should be thought about.

This is a beautiful, engaging book with amazing collages in vivid colors. I truly enjoyed reading it and looking at the pictures.

Pele and the Rivers of Fire is a beautiful story of Pele, the goddess of fire. This children's book is for anyone, childern or adults, who appreciate stunning artwork, and stories about Polynesian folklore. One of my favorite parts of the book is the glossary. It teaches you how to say the Hawaiin words and my kids have since been running around the house calling each other pahoehoe (PAH hoy hoy) and Lo'ihi (LOH ee hee.) It's a great bedtime read and will undoubtedly be passed on to future generations.

I had to look for a long time for a copy of this novel when I wanted to read it last year; it's fantastic that it's been brought back into print in the US and abroad. The success of McG's recent novels Amongst Women and By the Lake/That They May Face the Rising Sun casts a soft light upon his earlier fiction from the 1960s, but this novel is no romantic landscape.

In the bogs of west-central Ireland, a policeman cycles about pretending to do his duty while his wife takes care of the children and waits to find out whether she has a terminal disease. Told in a powerful voice largely from within her consciousness, the narrative style shows amazing assurance for a then emerging writer. The last scene from her point-of-view ranks in my estimation with Joyce's closing of "The Dead."

I heard McG introduced at a reading as the greatest Irish author from the second half of the 20th (and 21st?) century. This is no hyperbole. While his reticence means he is not the showman that Seamus Heaney is, and while his oblique commentary acknowledges the trauma of the past Irish century rather than exploiting it like many of his lesser contemporaries, McG's dignity in the face of 1960s censorship (for subsequent work) commands respect and a renewal of interest in his entire body of work. Read this story and you'll find the ebb of rural Ireland charted precisely.

The late John McGahern wrote incredibly poetic and beautiful novels set in his native country. The Barracks is about a middle-aged woman named Elizabeth Reegan who marries a widowed man with three children. A frustrated police officer with dreams of buying his own farm, and fulfilling the legacy of the Reegans, her husband is a man all but oblivious to Elizabeth and her needs. Already a widower, when he learns Elizabeth has breast cancer he can hardly bring himself to face the reality. When his first wife died his only thought was what a horror it was seeing her in the morgue. Any feelings of love or support are simply beyond him, leaving Elizabeth to deal with mortality on her own.

As she worsens, declining into death, Elizabeth is able to observe the family as an outsider. Already all but a ghost, she watches them go about their daily tasks while inside she's screaming with frustration, hoping for any bit of attention or kindness she doesn't dare ask for.

The Barracks is a heartbreaking novel, and a masterful one. McGahern gets inside the head of Elizabeth, expressing her plight with such empathy it's staggering. The prose is poetic and lyrical. I would even say it's flawless, and as perfect a work of fiction as I've ever read.

What a loss to literature, and to humanity, when McGahern died earlier this year, leaving behind him an award-winning body of fiction. There simply aren't enough contemporary writers out there like McGahern, more's the pity, but that's what made him stand out like a shining light while he was alive. Better to have written like an angel and then been lost than never to have written like an angel at all.