A Kauai Reader

by Chris Cook (Editor)

New

396 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1999

Reviews

[Robin]

I’ve had A Kaua'i Reader on my shelf for awhile now, was anticipating reading it during wintry weather to enjoying a “trip to the tropics.” But having been to Kaua’i, for me this book doesn't capture the magic of the tropical air, nor the natural beauty of the Garden Island. Instead, it’s partly essays from historical times and partly the editor’s own contributions. The collection seems scattered and uneven.

While I did learn something of Kauai’s last king Kaumuali’i and how Kamehameha got rid of him (the dark side of the touted “unification” of the Hawaiian islands), the military and missionary stories didn’t hold my interest. In many cases, the essays weren’t meant for publication, so the writing was designed to catalog an incident rather than inform readers. I skimmed several chapters. A notable exception was Jack London’s story about a semi-mythical radical militant leper. That got my attention!

People who like reading personal journals from the 19th and 20th centuries will enjoy this book more than I did.

[Derek]

It's an expansive collection capturing not just mythology and oral history but excerpts of written accounts and fiction(?) set in Kaua'i, as written by visitors to the island. As such there is much that is only mildly interesting and little actually compelling.

[Wendy Jackson]

Disclosure: I did not read the entire book; I read about half of it, focusing on particular chapters of interest to me. As others have noted, it needs a good edit. Nevertheless, I was glad to have it as a resource where I stayed when holidaying on Kaua'i for a week.

[Liona]

Kauai's history is fascinating, and the book is worth reading for that reason. Some of the stories written by other writers are marvelous, but the author's writing is sloppy and uninspired. The book also needs serious editing. One story included two repeated paragraphs.

[Mark]

A bit of a disappointment. There's a longer review of this collection at www.cloquetriverpress.com.
Mark

[Adam Lewis Schroeder]

Great selections, poorly edited. Whole pages are repeated.