Fans pick 100 books like The Rope of Tradition

Author Doug Mack took the time to visit and immerse himself in various communities in the US' "not quite states:" American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), and the U.S. Virgin Islands. I know because I was one of the people who showed him around and shared my own story when he visited Saipan, CNMI. When I received my copy of the book several months later, I was as captivated by the stories of the expats and "locals" in the other outposts as I was by those here on Saipan. Doug's attention to detail, respect of local norms and inquiring mind makes for a great read. The Not-Quite States of America offers on-the-ground insight you won't get from any text book on the territories.

Don A. Farrell's name always comes up (as it has now) in any credible discussion of publications about Saipan's, Tinian's, and Rota's history—particularly as it relates to World War II. His meticulously researched books have set a standard unmatched for thoroughness and accuracy. Don flies around the world to personally conduct interviews, visit sites, and scour archives and collections to produce visually stunning and informationally satisfying work replete with previously-unseen photographs, declassified documents, and accounts that even the history books often get wrong! Here on Saipan, you'll find Saipan: A Brief History at the American Memorial Park Visitor Center, our local library and bookstore, but also at gift shops, car rental companies, and even the checkout counter of local supermarkets! You won't be disappointed!

Marie S.C. Castro knows. Here on Saipan, we tell a different story about aviator Amelia Earhart's and Fred Noonan's fate. The famed pilot and navigator did not "disappear." They crashed on Mili atoll in the Marshall Islands; were detained by the Japanese military;  brought to Saipan where Fred was beheaded and Amelia died of dysentery. Without a Penny in my Pocket includes rare photos and shares Marie's account of growing up and attending school during the Japanese occupation, moving stateside, and ultimately returning home. It helps us understand the lifestyle of the local people at the time of Amelia's presence. (Castro, founder of Saipan's Amelia Earhart Memorial Association, has a book with Earhart researcher, Mike Campbell, to further the mission of keeping the legacy alive. Start the adventure with Marie's story!)

It is the dream of many indigenous residents of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota to visit—at least once during a lifetime—the remote "northern islands" of the 400-mile archipelago that comprises the Mariana Islands. High school student Dennis Chan fulfilled that dream as his prize for winning an essay contest. The contest—and the winner's participation in a week-long, first-of-its-kind ocean expedition—was timed to coincide with the Bush administration's designation of a 95,000sqare mile swath of the Western Pacific Ocean as an official Marine National Monument. Dennis, with the help of activist and blogger Angelo Villagomez, chronicled and published Our Northern Islands, an account (with photos) of the team's once-in-a-lifetime adventure!

This book was also published under the title Vikings of the Pacific and was written by New Zealand Māori scholar Sir Peter Buck (also known by his Māori name, Te Rangi Hīroa). It was a pioneering work explaining, from an Indigenous perspective, the process through which the islands of Polynesia came to be settled over thousands of years by voyagers traveling in outrigger or double-hulled canoes without navigational instruments.

As an anthropologist whose research has focused on Polynesia and who has always been interested in maritime issues, I was intrigued by the questions this book raised and motivated to explore them during my own ethnographic fieldwork.

As if a plague of memory loss that eventually makes you forget how to breathe isn’t scary enough, Cutter takes us deep under the ocean, to a lab where something has gone terribly wrong with our potential saviors. This is the most claustrophobic book I’ve ever read. You can feel the crushing weight of the water and the dark just outside the lab’s walls. There’s a wonderful sort of madness to the whole thing, and one scene, in particular, continues to haunt me.

Ben Finney was a surfer, sailor, and anthropologist who spent his career at the University of Hawai‘i and was a founder of the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS). The PVS built Hōkūle‘a, a double-hulled sailing canoe modeled on a traditional Hawaiian design but constructed of modern materials.

Finney, then, was part of a team that sailed from Hawai‘i to Tahiti in 1976 without instruments under the leadership of Pius “Mau” Piailug, a renowned navigator from the Micronesian island of Satawal. This book is Finney’s account of that journey and its many challenges.

Hōkūle‘a and the PVS’s experience helped inspire me to write my volume on Anutan seamanship, and Finney wrote the foreword. Later, in 2007, he joined me in a study of Taumako voyaging.

Tightwads on the Loose is another honest and well-written account of a couple’s ups and downs, in this case while cruising in the Pacific for seven years; only one year less than my husband and I traveled on our sailboat.

This enticing story also has a lot of parallels with my life: the couple’s age, their sense of adventure, their frugal means, their full-time commitment to their boat for many years, their need to make money, and some of the geographical and cultural experiences. Recognizing experiences and personality traits while reading this book made me enjoy it better.

Luckily, Wendy and her partner did not have to endure numerous dramatic life-altering events. Tightwads on the Loose is an easy-to-read sailing memoir that I highly recommend. 

I found this book a very exciting read about sailing alone on the ocean with little or no knowledge about sailing or the ocean. All problems he encountered were of his own making, and survival was largely due to good luck rather than good management.

Little did I realize he painted a more romanticized version of his misadventures.

Imagine, if you will: the world’s tallest mountain suddenly appears in the middle of the ocean. Where did it come from? What is its purpose? And what happens when dumb, curious humans (a natural but very dangerous combination) decide to go investigate?

They certainly don’t have fun! But the reader will because this horror novel is so wonderfully weird that I was gobsmacked by the time I finished. You can’t be sad when you’re wondering if there are monsters in the snow…