The United States of Books: Hawaii

Part Hawaiian, part Mainlander.  Perpetual new girl at school. Hanging in the shadow of her actress mother’s spotlight. And now: new resident of the prominent West family’s guest cottage.

Moving deftly from Honolulu to Jakarta, between romance, farce, and tragedy, Democracy is a tour de force from a writer who can dissect an entire society with a single phrase.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author James A. Michener brings Hawaii’s epic history vividly to life in a classic saga that has captivated readers since its initial publication in 1959.

When Japanese men are rounded up, and Tomi’s father and grandfather are arrested, it’s a terrifying time to be Japanese in America. But one thing doesn’t change: the loyalty of Tomi’s buddies.

The twenty-four stories that make up Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman express the incomparable Haruki Murakami’s mastery of the form.

Told in spellbinding and mythic prose, House of Many Gods is a deeply complex and provocative love story set against the background of Hawaii and Russia. Interwoven throughout with the indelible portrait of a native Hawaiian family struggling against poverty, drug wars, and the increasing military occupation of their sacred lands.

Forced to examine what they owe not only to the living but to the dead, a family must go on a memorable journey that leads to unforeseen humor, growth, and profound revelations.

From Here to Eternity re-creates the authentic soldier experience and captures, like nothing else, the honor and savagery of man.