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The Local Literary Scene
Isle Pages
New releases from
Hawaii authors
"Namoluk Beyond the Reef --
The Transformation of a
Micronesian Community"
by Mac Marshall (Westview, $20)What happens when most members of a community move away? More than half of the indigenous people of Namoluk Atoll in the Caroline Islands have emigrated elsewhere and established Namolukian communities -- such as in Eureka, Calif. -- and it's only a matter of time until the ties to home change. Former Kailuan and current professor Marshall examines this scenario in colorful vignettes, painfully evident to every ethnic or cultural group who thinks of their home as belonging somewhere else.
"Courage: The Road to Freedom"
by Gail L. Eynon (Trafford, $15)Eynon, who lives in Hilo, endured more than a decade of abuse from others before managing to break free of an abusive spouse. The slim book tells how she did it.
"Contemplating Life and Death"
by Masahisa Tabata, M.D. (Awakening, $5)A kind of companion volume to the documentary "Living Your Dying," this offers elegant insights into the Buddhist views of the Great Beyond, and, by extension, daily life.
"Plateau of Chains"
by Capt. George P. Sotos
(1st, $21.75)Sotos, a former commander of the formerly super-secret underground electronic command center at Kunia, has written a self-published thriller about secret underground command centers. Like most freshman thrillers, the story is primarily told in dialogue and could use editing and exposition. Typographically, the book's leading is far too spacious. Still, Sotos knows what he's writing about, and that helps verisimilitude.
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