Hawai'i : a Sense of Place


Book Description

If you think Hawaiian interiors begin and end with floral patterns and a little rattan, think again. Hawaii's best designed rooms exude warmth and comfort while protecting privacy and giving artistic expression to their inhabitants. First in every islander's mind is a love of their natural surroundings and a desire to connect to the environment. Situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii has for centuries been inspired by the cultures of the Pacific Rim, influenced by both Asia and the United States. Hawaii's leading interior designer, Mary Philpotts McGrath, shows you how to get an easy, stylish island look. Peek inside the homes of many of her firm's clients and her good friends. She shows that Hawaiian design is timeless, with a connection to place that transcends fads and fashions.




This Is Paradise


Book Description

Elegant, brutal, and profound—this magnificent debut captures the grit and glory of modern Hawai'i with breathtaking force and accuracy. In a stunning collection that announces the arrival of an incredible talent, Kristiana Kahakauwila travels the islands of Hawai'i, making the fabled place her own. Exploring the deep tensions between local and tourist, tradition and expectation, façade and authentic self, This Is Paradise provides an unforgettable portrait of life as it’s truly being lived on Maui, Oahu, Kaua'i and the Big Island. In the gut-punch of “Wanle,” a beautiful and tough young woman wants nothing more than to follow in her father’s footsteps as a legendary cockfighter. With striking versatility, the title story employs a chorus of voices—the women of Waikiki—to tell the tale of a young tourist drawn to the darker side of the city’s nightlife. “The Old Paniolo Way” limns the difficult nature of legacy and inheritance when a patriarch tries to settle the affairs of his farm before his death. Exquisitely written and bursting with sharply observed detail, Kahakauwila’s stories remind us of the powerful desire to belong, to put down roots, and to have a place to call home.




Ancestral Places


Book Description

Ancestral Places is a revealing journey through the language and practices of a traditional knowledge system, offering a Hawaiian epistemological framework that enhances our understanding of place.




Radar Girls


Book Description

"A fresh, delightful romp of a novel."—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code * SheReads Most Anticipated Historical Fiction of Summer 2021 pick * Book Reporter Summer Reading pick * BiblioLifestyle Most Anticipated Summer 2021 Historical Fiction Books selection * Greatist Best Historical Fiction Books pick * An extraordinary story inspired by the real Women’s Air Raid Defense, where an unlikely recruit and her sisters-in-arms forge their place in WWII history. Daisy Wilder prefers the company of horses to people, bare feet and salt water to high heels and society parties. Then, in the dizzying aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Daisy enlists in a top secret program, replacing male soldiers in a war zone for the first time. Under fear of imminent invasion, the WARDs guide pilots into blacked-out airstrips and track unidentified planes across Pacific skies. But not everyone thinks the women are up to the job, and the new recruits must rise above their differences and work side by side despite the resistance and heartache they meet along the way. With America’s future on the line, Daisy is determined to prove herself worthy. And with the man she’s falling for out on the front lines, she cannot fail. From radar towers on remote mountaintops to flooded bomb shelters, she’ll need her new team when the stakes are highest. Because the most important battles are fought—and won—together. This inspiring and uplifting tale of pioneering, unsung heroines vividly transports the reader to wartime Hawaii, where one woman’s call to duty leads her to find courage, strength and sisterhood. “A wow of a book…[that is] a captivating story of friendship, heartbreak and true love. Highly recommend!” —Karen Robards, New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan of Paris







Legendary Hawai'i and the Politics of Place


Book Description

Hawaiian legends figure greatly in the image of tropical paradise that has come to represent Hawai'i in popular imagination. But what are we buying into when we read these stories as texts in English-language translations? Cristina Bacchilega poses this question in her examination of the way these stories have been adapted to produce a legendary Hawai'i primarily for non-Hawaiian readers or other audiences. With an understanding of tradition that foregrounds history and change, Bacchilega examines how, following the 1898 annexation of Hawai'i by the United States, the publication of Hawaiian legends in English delegitimized indigenous narratives and traditions and at the same time constructed them as representative of Hawaiian culture. Hawaiian mo'olelo were translated in popular and scholarly English-language publications to market a new cultural product: a space constructed primarily for Euro-Americans as something simultaneously exotic and primitive and beautiful and welcoming. To analyze this representation of Hawaiian traditions, place, and genre, Bacchilega focuses on translation across languages, cultures, and media; on photography, as the technology that contributed to the visual formation of a westernized image of Hawai'i; and on tourism as determining postannexation economic and ideological machinery. In a book with interdisciplinary appeal, Bacchilega demonstrates both how the myth of legendary Hawai'i emerged and how this vision can be unmade and reimagined.




Kanaka Hawai'i Cartography


Book Description

Kanaka Hawai'i Cartography Practices are a compilation of intimate, interactive, and integrative processes that present place as "experienced space," situate mapping in the environment, and encode spatial knowledge into bodily memory via repetitive recitations and other habitual practices, such as hula. Kanaka Hawai'i cartography is similar to Western cartography in that it provides a shorthand system of understanding spatial phenomenon, but distinctive in that it places emphasis on multisensual cognitive abilities and multidimensional symbolic interrelationships, and privileges performance as a primary mode of communication. Book jacket.




Mahu


Book Description

Mahu--a generally negative Hawaiian term for homosexuals--introduces a unique character to detective fiction. Kimo Kanapa'aka is a handsome, mixed-race surfer living in Honolulu, a police detective confronting his homosexuality in an atmosphere of macho bravado within the police force. When Kimo Kanapa'aka leaves a Honolulu gay bar late one night and stumbles onto two men dropping a dead body in an alley, he has no idea that he is about to begin the journey of his life -- into danger, passion and self-awareness.







Beyond Green Tea and Grapefruit


Book Description

"In this beautiful and moving collection, Gail Harada deftly traverses the boundaries between poetry, memoir, and fiction, demonstrating a rare versatility of craft. The prose has the lyric sensibility of the born poet and the poems are infused with the storyteller's magic. While many of the selections are grounded in a sense of place - the well-loved geography of Hawaiʻi - it is a dynamic sense of place, shot through with a humor and irony that never gives way to mere nostalgia."--Publisher's description.