Category: Hawaii

The Price of Paradise and The Value of Hawaii: A Debate and Comparison

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Monday, February 28, 3:00-4:30 p.m.
Art Auditorium, UH Manoa campus
Free and open to the public

Join contributors to The Price of Paradise (1992, 1993) and the more recent The Value of Hawai‘i (2010) for a lively debate and comparison of these two influential publications.

Speakers include UH Press authors from both books: David Callies, Randall Roth, Susan Chandler, and Jon Osorio. For brief bios, see the website at http://www.hawaii.edu/calendar/manoa/2011/02/28/14594.html. The event will be moderated by Civil Beat Associate Editor Sara Lin, and livestreamed at http://www.civilbeat.com. Books will be available for sale through UH Press.

Co-sponsored by Civil Beat, The Center for Biographical Research, and Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities. For more information: http://thevalueofhawaii.com.

Book Signings Scheduled for Author of Regulating Paradise

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David CalliesUniversity of Hawai‘i law professor David L. Callies will sign copies of his recent book, Regulating Paradise: Land Use Controls in Hawaii, at two bookstore appearances during January. The public is invited to meet and speak to Professor Callies at these events:

Saturday, January 15, 3:00-4:00 p.m.
Barnes & Noble, Kahala Mall, phone: 737-3323

Saturday, January 29, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Barnes & Noble, Ala Moana Center, phone: 949-7307

Talks Scheduled for Author of Haoles in Hawaii

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Haoles in HawaiiJudy Rohrer, author of Haoles in Hawai‘i, is scheduled to present her book at the following free events and the public is invited to attend:

Book signing
Saturday, January 8, 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Basically Books – Hilo
160 Kamehameha Avenue, phone: 808-961-0144

Author talk and book signing party (refreshments will be provided)
Sunday, January 9, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Native Books/Nā Mea Hawai‘i, Ward Warehouse
1050 Ala Moana Blvd., phone 596-8885

Author presentation
Thursday, January 13, 5:00-6:30 p.m.
Windward Community College, Hale Alaka‘i, Room 102

Friday, January 14, 12:30-2:00 p.m.
Author talk and discussion
Sponsored by the Center for Biographical Research
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Kuykendall 410

Book of Honu Author Signings

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The Book of HonuPeter Bennett and Ursula Keuper-Bennett, authors of The Book of Honu: Enjoying and Learning About Hawai‘i’s Sea Turtles, will be signing copies of their book at these Maui locations:

Barnes & Noble – Lahaina
Saturday, December 18, 2:00-3:00 p.m.

Maui Ocean Center Store
Sunday, December 19, 11:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.

“A magnificent guide for the budding high school marine biologist or anyone else with an interest in sea turtles. . . . Extensively researched, and the Bennetts’ passion for these creatures shines through every page.” —Honolulu Advertiser

EPA to Honor UH Press Author

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Chip FletcherDr. Charles (Chip) Fletcher will be among the “environmental heroes” recognized today at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 12th annual Environmental Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles. Fletcher, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Hawai‘i, is a co-author of Living on the Shores of Hawaii: Natural Hazards, the Environment, and Our Communities, published this month by UH Press. The EPA is honoring Fletcher for his work in climate change science with UH’s Center for Island Climate Adaptation and Policy.” Read the Honolulu Star-Advertiser article here.

Photo: Windward Community College, University of Hawai‘i

Politics and Public Service in Hawaii

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Backstage in a BureaucracyWhat is it like to be in charge of a large public bureaucracy? Top-level state executives set agendas, formulate policies, turn legislative mandates into actions, oversee staff operations, develop and manage budgets, and generally influence (for better or worse) agency performance. In Backstage in a Bureaucracy: Politics and Public Service, Susan Chandler and Dick Pratt provide a first-hand day-to-day look at running a large bureaucracy. For eight years Chandler was the director of the Hawai‘i State Department of Human Services, where she managed more than 2,000 employees. Dick Pratt, a public administration professor, has advised a variety of public and private organizations in Hawai’i, the Pacific, and Asia.

“Chandler and Pratt capture with clarity, insight, and good humor the challenges and complexities of leadership in the government sector. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand or contribute through public service, and a cathartic experience for anyone who’s been there.” —Susan Doyle, president, Aloha United Way, and former state deputy director of commerce and consumer affairs

January 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3501-9 / $15.00 (PAPER)

Select UH Press Titles Now on Kindle

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UH Press is pleased to announce 9 of its titles are now available for Kindle readers. See below plus Kindle books by the “Beaches of Hawai‘i” series’ John R. K. Clark and Stuart M. Ball, Jr., author of our popular hiking guides.

The Value of Hawaii
The Value of Hawai‘i: Knowing the Past, Shaping the Future
edited by Craig Howes and Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwo‘ole Osorio
How did we get here? Three-and-a-half-day school weeks. Prisoners farmed out to the mainland. Tent camps for the migratory homeless. A blinkered dependence on tourism and the military for virtually all economic activity. The steady degradation of already degraded land. Contempt for anyone employed in education, health, and social service. An almost theological belief in the evil of taxes. At a time when new leaders will be elected, and new solutions need to be found, the contributors to The Value of Hawai‘i outline the causes of our current state and offer points of departure for a Hawai‘i-wide debate on our future.

Bright Triumphs from Dark Hours
Bright Triumphs From Dark Hours: Turning Adversity into Success
by David Heenan
Bright Triumphs From Dark Hours examines the lives of ten extraordinary people who overcame great adversity in their personal or professional lives by applying winning strategies that guided them out of the darkness of near-defeat and into the light of success.

“David Heenan’s fascinating stories of overcoming adversity make Bright Triumphs both a timely and inspiring read.” —Spencer Johnson, M.D., New York Times best-selling author of Who Moved My Cheese? and Peaks and Valleys

“This is an inspiring book. All of us, if we honestly look into our hearts, we know that there have been moments when we have failed. Failed ourselves, failed our family, and failed our communities. This book tells you that failure should not be the cause and reason for your demise.” —U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye

Melal
Melal: A Novel of the Pacific
by Robert Barclay

“An absorbing, original read.” —Honolulu Weekly

“A first novel that left me dazzled. . . . All the characters—the Marshallese, the members of their spirit world, and even the Americans—are well developed and deeply, sensitively drawn.” —Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing

“Barclay is a first-time novelist who simply got it right. . . . Melal is a powerful and at times heart-wrenching novel that should appeal to a wide range of readers interested in the region today.” —The Contemporary Pacific

“It is wonderful to have a novel of the Pacific, of people firmly rooted in the past and present of the great ocean, its atolls, islands, homes, and spiritual homelands. This is a wrenching story of people—voiceless, powerless—as they attempt to survive the horrors of nuclear testing, relocation, Western arrogance and domination. It is a good story with robust characters—some real and contemporary, others mythical and ancient—and an important book.” —Patricia Grace

“What separates this novel from others, even highly respected ones, is its extraordinary descriptive mastery. . . . This precise and vivid evocation of experience is what writing has been about from the beginning. In all respects, this is a superb book.” —Ian MacMillan

Kindle E-Books by Stuart M. Ball, Jr.

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Three books by Stuart M. Ball, Jr., are now available for Kindle readers:
Hikers Guide to Oahu
The Hikers Guide to O‘ahu, Revised Edition
Whether you are an experienced or novice hiker, you will benefit from the information in this guide. The author describes in detail 50 trails that will take you to O‘ahu’s lush valleys, spectacular waterfalls, and windswept ridges.

“The strength of Ball’s guides has always been his clear, detailed route descriptions. For example, when he says you’ll encounter a grove of ‘ohia trees three miles into a hike, you do.” —Honolulu Star-Bulletin

Hikers Guide to the Hawaiian Islands
The Hikers Guide to the Hawaiian Islands
Written in the same accessible style and format as the highly successful The Hikers Guide to O‘ahu, this volume is a detailed and fully illustrated guide to the best day hikes on the Big Island, Kaua‘i, Maui, and O‘ahu. Each island is represented by an equal number of hikes, 44 in all. Together they offer both resident and visitor alike the chance to explore some of Hawai‘i’s most spectacular scenery.

For each trip, the author provides detailed directions to the trailhead, a feature-by-feature description of the route, a topographic map keyed to the route description, and comments on common plants and animals, geological formations, historical sites, and other points of interest.

Backpackers Guide to Hawaii
The Backpackers Guide to Hawai‘i
This book will take you where few people go—to active volcanoes, lush valleys, cascading waterfalls, secluded beaches, and windswept ridges and sea cliffs.

“Included in each trip is helpful planning information, including directions for driving to the trail head, a step-by-step route description, length of trip, elevation gain and loss, and level of difficulty. . . . Detailed topographic maps show the route and are keyed to the trip description. . . . Specific and detailed directions are given for nearly every step, providing a sense of much-needed security for those hikers taking their first steps in Hawaii.” —Honolulu Star-Bulletin

Kindle E-Books by John R. K. Clark

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Three books by John R. K. Clark are now available for Kindle readers:
Beaches of Oahu
Beaches of O‘ahu, Revised Edition
Completely revised and updated, this edition of Beaches of O‘ahu offers sixty new color photos of the island’s spectacular beaches and coastline by photographer Mike Waggoner, a water safety section, and 22 newly drawn maps locating more than 130 beaches and shoreline parks.

“A must for Hawaii fans.” —Chicago Tribune

Hawai‘i Place Names
Hawai‘i Place Names: Shores, Beaches, and Surf Sites
Clark, the author of the highly regarded “Beaches of Hawai‘i” series, gives us the many captivating stories behind the hundreds of Hawai‘i place names associated with the ocean—the names of shores, beaches, and other sites where people fish, swim, dive, surf, and paddle.

“An awesome amount of work went into gathering the information for the 2,500 entries . . . and Clark deserves a big mahalo.” —Honolulu Advertiser

Guardian of the Sea
Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawaii
Jizo, one of the most beloved Buddhist deities in Japan, is known primarily as the guardian of children and travelers. In coastal areas, fishermen and swimmers also look to him for protection.

“Through Clark’s meticulous documentation, we see the birth of an early culture, some of the more deadly shorelines of our state, an education on Buddhist religion, the art of fishing technique and some useful tips to avoid getting hurt in the water. Ambitious stuff for a book about statues.” —Honolulu Weekly

“John Clark has written a remarkable book about shoreline statues of Jizo, a Buddhist figure dedicated to our protection and enlightenment. Erected by issei, first-generation Japanese Americans, Jizo statues served as guardians of ulua fishermen casting in remote and dangerous coastal areas. John draws on interviews with more than three hundred individuals to document the location of these statues and in the process offers us a glimpse of the daily lives and spirituality of early Japanese Americans. We are indebted to him for making us aware of these Jizo monuments and their role in shaping Hawai‘i’s multicultural heritage.” —Dennis Ogawa, chair, American Studies Department, University of Hawai’i

Natural Hazards, the Environment, and Hawaii’s Communities

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Living on the ShoresRarely a day goes by in Hawai‘i without the media reporting on environmental issues stemming from public debate. Will the proposed housing development block my access to the beach? Is the rising sea level going to cause flooding where I live? How does overfishing damage the reef? Is the water clean where I surf? Living on the Shores of Hawai‘i , by Charles Fletcher, Robynne Boyd, William J. Neal, and Virginia Tice, discusses the paradox of environmental loss under a management system considered by many to be one of the most stringent in the nation. It reviews a wide range of environmental concerns in Hawai‘i with an eye toward resolution by focusing on “place-based” management, a theme consistent with—and borrowing from—the Hawaiian ahupua‘a system.

A Latitude 20 Book
November 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3433-3 / $27.99 (PAPER)

In Anticipation of Mark Twain’s Autobiography

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Letters from HawaiiNext month (November 15, to be exact), the much-anticipated first volume of The Autobiography of Mark Twain will be available from University of California Press.

What should you do in the meantime?

Read Mark Twain’s Letters from Hawaii! The 30-year-old Twain, who had not yet been outside the U.S., composed twenty-five travel letters for the Sacramento Union during his 4-month stay in the Sandwich Islands. A tireless sightseer, Twain went everywhere and wrote on whatever interested him: scenery and climate, politics, social conditions, Polynesian legends and lore, the monarcy, missionaries, business, and history. Letters and Twain’s Hawai‘i experiences opened the door to a new and lucrative profession for the writer—that of lecturer—and gave him material for a series of popular travel accounts that would culminate in his first important book, The Innocents Abroad.

Mark Twain’s Letters from Hawaii
Edited by A. Grove Day
ISBN 978-0-8248-0288-2 / $17.99 (PAPER)

Contemporary Polynesian Poetry in English

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Mauri OlaMauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English, edited by Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri, and Robert Sullivan, is a follow-up volume to the highly acclaimed Whetu Moana, the first anthropology of Polynesian poems in English edited by Polynesians. The new book includes poetry written over the last twenty-five years by more than eighty writers from Aotearoa, Hawai‘i, Tonga, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau, Tahiti, and Rotuma.

This anthology includes selections from poets including Tusiata Avia, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Rangi Faith, Sia Figiel, Imaikalani Kalahele, Brandy Nalani McDougall, Karlo Mila, J. C. Sturm, Robert Sullivan, Apirana Taylor, Konai Helu Thaman, Haunani-Kay Trask, Hone Tuwhare, Albert Wendt, and Wayne Kaumualii Westlake.

Albert Wendt’s most recent book, The Adventures of Vela, was awarded this year’s Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Southeast Asia/Pacific region).

October 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3541-5 / $26.00 (PAPER)

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