The most recommended books about Hawaii

This is a fascinating biography of Agatha Christie, who emerges as truly exceptional.

She is the daughter of wealthy Edwardian parents, destined for a good marriage, but all that changes when the family's money is lost. Agatha dares to become a nurse in World War I – it's grueling work. She trains as a pharmacist, where she learns all about the poisons she would use in her books. She marries a dashing pilot who betrays her with another woman.

Despite the sadness and difficulties she encounters, Agatha makes her name as the 'Queen of Crime,’' the most famous crime writer in the world. Whether you read Christie or not, you'll find this story of a woman's life throughout the upheavals of the twentieth century compelling.

One of my working titles for my book was A Country All Its Own, a phrase pulled from this exquisite novel set in Hilo, Hawaii. Ball plays with the theme of disappearance throughout, and it’s basically the female version of Australia Stories. Kinau, the narrator, is also shaped by her mother’s stories and haunted by the disappearance of her father, and the death of her ex-husband's stepson, who comes to the island in search of his own destiny. Original and breathtaking in its craft and message, Ball is an accomplished storyteller.

I truly enjoy historical fiction that presents a culture or era from a different point of view. This one is set in early twentieth-century Hawaii. It features a girl, Letty, returning from a boarding school on the mainland. Letty’s devoted to animals, and she is one of the first female veterinarians in history. She jumps into the ocean to save a horse. Her healing powers are strengthened by her connection to the ancient Hawaiian land. The undercurrent of power gives this novel a fantasy feel, but it doesn’t lose its historical aspect. Then Letty learns the price of her healing power—her kisses can kill. Even worse, she’s attracted to the man who owns the horse she saved. 

We meet the protagonist Kai and her daughter Michaela as they navigate some of life’s most difficult moments. They are grieving and lost as Kai struggles to navigate her new life and the dauting prospecting of supporting Michaela all on her own.

Luckily they meet Belle, a wildly successful businesswoman who takes them under her wing as she mentors Kai. Throughout the story, Belle teaches 7 rules that will ensure success for any of us in life and in business.

The book is so compelling that you won’t realize you are learning business principles until you reach the ending with satisfaction and realize that you are smarter and better prepared for having read it. This is another book I simply couldn’t put down!

This book was unique from its very first pages—the use of language, the immersive writing, the evocative descriptions of the islands, the real-as-you-and-me cast of characters were all so new to me that I felt I was learning about an entirely new world.

I have visited Hawaii, but like most visitors, I never got to know the real Hawaii. This book brings it home, but it does so by weaving a story so gripping and real that you never feel that you are being educated, even as you are!

Surfing has been at the center of my life since I was twelve, and no book has ever captured it quite like William Finnegan’s masterpiece. I was gripped by—and related to—his obsession. I felt like I was right there with him, riding that nearly transparent wave off a remote island of Fiji.

And the grappling with how surfing fits into adult life—yes, that too, really hit home.

Michener published Hawaii in 1959, the same year that Hawaii became the 50th U.S. state. Michener traces Hawaii’s epic history in a set of episodes that begins with the physical birth of the islands as volcanos. From there, in succession, the story follows the Polynesian seafarers who made the perilous 1,300-mile journey in canoes, then the arrival of American missionaries in the 19th Century. Further episodes include the arrival of the Chinese and then the Japanese and in the final chapter, "The Golden Men," we see how intermarriage of all of these ethnicities produces the modern ‘golden Hawaiian.'

In 1966, parts of the book were made into the film, Hawaii, starring Max von Sydow as the American missionary, Abner Hale, and Julie Andrews as his wife. The film covers the book’s third chapter, the settlement in the island kingdom by its first American missionaries and their crusade against Hawaiian… show more.

Despite the awkward and puzzling title, this novel had excellent reviews and prizes (my typical criteria for contemporary writing), and I was not disappointed.

The structure seems familiar (alternating points of view—think Faulkner and Woolf), but Hokeah does a masterful job of both keeping the reader wondering what’s going on and captivating her with fascinating turns of plot and charmingly bizarre characters and choices.

It’s not a pretty story—life in Oklahoma as Mexican and Native American was and is hard. But the warmth and love that continually shows up in the most unexpected circumstances makes this a powerful affirmation of how good even “bad” people can be.

Five Decembers was a hard-boiled mystery in the style of Dashiell Hammett that begins just before Pearl Harbor and then was set in Japan throughout the rest of the war. 

In addition to the mystery itself was an improbable love story between the American detective and a Japanese woman who harbored and hid him behind enemy lines. Wonderfully written, it was the book I quite literally couldn’t put down.

First published in 1940, Hawaiian Mythology is an astonishingly comprehensive compilation of native Hawaiian stories and beliefs that, had it not been for the systematic – even dogged – efforts of people like Martha Beckwith may have never survived to today. This is a book to dip into, especially if you find yourself in Polynesia. The stories are factual, often unembellished, which allows you a glimpse into the soul of Pacific peoples. This book also explores the connections between (remote) Hawaii and other island groups in the western Pacific whence its people came, bearing oral memories that seeded the geography of Hawaii and directed the nature of its human occupation, probably hundreds of years before Europeans even knew the Pacific Ocean existed.