BiblioTiki

Nurse on Paradise Isle by Nell Marr Dean

2012-01-23T21:37:00.000-08:00

Nurse on Paradise Isle by Nell Marr Dean, 1967.

Since my last book was by a female missionary, I thought I needed something a little more spicy. So I picked this book. Have I mentioned that I have a love of the pocket sized paperback? I think my love started at a young age with many visits to the local paperback exchange, the Book Rack (which now I see is sadly closed). I picked up all the hits there, A Clockwork Orange, New Stories from the Twilight Zone, Monkees go Mod..

The premise is a young nurse takes at job on a remote island in French Polynesia to run a hospital for the employees who are building a luxury hotel. She falls for the macho fella who is in charge of the project but there is competition from a local beauty.

Sounds pretty spicy right? Turns out, not so much. It wound up being a meditation on malpractice lawsuits against doctors. Yawn. It made me realize that perhaps I don't need to keep every book that is in the Bibliotiki. Though I do like the cover.

In researching the book I saw that the author was quite prolific in the romance genre. She wrote a lot books about nurses but she actually worked as a librarian. Now if this book was called Librarian on Paradise Isle, I'd be sold. She could have a card catalog in the outrigger.

One bonus with vintage paperbacks is you often get a list of other titles they publish. I might need to find Hounds of Hell and Agents of Chaos.

Well, it was nice to read some fiction from my collection, just wish it had a little more substance but that is par for the course with a 50 cent pocket paperback I guess.

The Lymans of Hilo by Sarah Joiner Lyman

2011-11-25T14:12:00.001-08:00

The Lymans of Hilo: A fascinating account of life in 19th century Hawaii by Sarah Joiner Lyman, 1979.

One day my husband was walking by a local bookstore and noticed this in their free bin. I looked at it but wasn't so sure I wanted to read it. I thought since it was by a missionary it would be pretty dry. I tossed it in the corner and promptly forgot about it for a few months.

Then we booked a trip to the Big Island for 2012 and I thought "don't I have some book with Hilo in the title?" I dug it out and googled it and saw that there is a Lyman Museum in Hilo you can visit. That sold me because I though if I liked the book, I might want to visit the museum while we are there.

Well, the book was pretty dry but interesting enough. Sarah married a man suddenly and 24 days later they were off on a boat to Hawaii in 1831from the East Coast. It is just amazing to me that people would just pick up and leave everything behind to go preach about the lord to the middle of no where.

The husband doesn't appear much in the journal, I think he was gone a lot. She was left behind to take care of the house and the 8 children (guess he did come back to visit). They never visit the mainland again though many of their children moved there.

They look like a party, don't they?

It was interesting reading someones journal from their age of 25 until they died at age 80. There were some large gaps in the book where maybe there would be only 1 entry a year for the book isn't that long. They also included some letters she wrote.

It was fascinating to see how Hawaii had changed in that period for she does mention some of the politics.

It is a worth a read and since I have a special area in my Bibliotiki devoted to the South Pacific from a woman's perspective, I'll be keeping it around.

In a note related to the actual book but not the content. The book had some old recipes clipped and included in it. None related to Hawaii though neat to look at. They are from 1989, when I graduated high school but look so dated to me they could of been from the 1960's. It did make me think that clippings is just a bonus of a used book that you just can't get in an ebook.

Waikiki Beachnik by H. Allen Smith

2011-10-17T18:09:00.000-07:00

Waikiki Beachnik by H. Allen Smith 1960
This a book I have been seeing around for years. Have seen it on Tiki Central in the paperback thread, have seen it for sale in Hawaii for more money then I want to spend and finally have seen it in Seattle. On my birthday trip this year we met up with some friends in Seattle and where in search of coffee. For some reason we had a hard time finding coffee but it was finally obtained by the University where we also found a bookstore. And at this bookstore I finally got my copy of Waikiki Beachnik for the amount I wanted to spend: $4.38 with tax.

I didn't realized until today that I own another book by the author, Two-Thirds of a Coconut Tree from 1963 about Tahiti. For some reason I was confusing the author with another humorist from the same time period, Jack Douglas. They both seemed like older, curmudgeon type fellows with long suffering wives who like Polynesia so you can understand my confusion. I read Douglas' book: Adventures of Huckleberry Hashimoto 1965 a while back and still need to put it on on the Bibliotiki.

I actually liked WB better then the Hashimoto book and did chuckle out loud a few times. The book's format is set up as daily diary entries from November 23 to February 21. He lives on the east coast and it starts off with him getting ready to leave and everyone he knows tells him to look up "so and so" when he gets there. They have a stop in San Francisco on the way, which I enjoyed since I live here. He does make a mention that good Mexican food is to be had at the Fairmont Hotel in the Papagayo Room. Thanks to the internet I learn that this was a pretty famous place that all the celebs ate at.

Then off on the Matson line for Oahu. They lived in Hawaii from the beginning of December till the end of February. My god that must of been nice. For the majority of the time they lived at the Royal Hawaiian and then did a short trip to the Big Island. He spends a lot of time at the Moana Surfrider drinking and listening to Hawaii Calls.

One thing that I liked about Mr. Smith was that he loves Hawaiian music so he mentions a lot of what was going on in the scene then, though he is not a fan of Arthur Lyman. He is a bigger fan of Alfred Apaka. Here is what he says about Lyman:

The Arthur Lyman he mentioned is a young man with a weird combo playing a style of stuff that seems to have originated here in Hawaii and that features the sounds made by a guinea hen in agony, the squawk of a sick chicken, and the shriek of a peacock in childbirth. I'm told that this sick chicken type of music is catching on back home. My native land is overrun by pupule akuheads...

Ouch, I will never be able to listen to Lyman the same way again.

He does a lot of name dropping like Donn Beach and his steak restaurant on Oahu. I couldn't figure out what place this was unless they just ment the Don The Beachcomer restaurant. He also spent Christmas with Duke Kahanamoku, who he doesn't really paint that flattering a picture.

I always get excited when something I am reading references something else I've read. Smith meets the husband of Johnny Frisbie, the daughter of Robert Dean Frisbie, which I also need to include both his and her books in the Bibliotiki.

The book ends in sort of an abrupt way. The author is about to embark on a spur of the moment trip to Tahiti on a small boat but it doesn't work out and he is full of regret until later when a woman, Ann Brisbin who did go on the trip sent him her travelog from it and what a hell it was. Now her book, I would like to read.

The book does have some sweet little illustrations every now and then, but not too much.

I wound up enjoying this book more then I thought I would and look forward to reading his Tahiti book in the future.

Tupaia: Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator by Joan Druett

2011-06-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

Tupaia: Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator by Joan Druett 2011

This book is why I prefer to read non-fiction, because you just can't make this stuff up. This book brings to life a Tahitian who is largely forgotten in the history of early South Pacific exploration but actually made a huge impact.

The large amount of research shines thru in this book but doesn't weight it down. I actually found the book quite humorous, though usually at the expense of the ignorant Europeans.

I am amazed at what she pulled together of early Tahitian life since they had no written record.

In a nutshell, Captain Cook's first voyage goes to Tahiti where they offer Tupaia a ride to Europe. Along the way he pretty much keeps the local Maoris and Aborigines from killing them. And sadly, he dies a painful death in Indonesia/Batavia. I always find it so tragic that these boats will make it thru cannibal infested waters of Melanesia but then so many people die in the malaria and cholera wasteland that was the Dutch owned Indonesia of the 1800's.

Tupaia was a master navigator, high priest, artist, politician and translator. The cover of the book depicts one of his watercolors from the trip and he also drew a famous map of Polynesia.

I just wonder if the Maori's minds where blown when he showed up and they could communicate. It is very telling that their legends speak of Tupaia rather then Captain Cook.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in exploration of that area, it is a quick read and not too long either.

Yankee Whalers in the South Seas by A.B.C. Whipple

2011-04-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

Yankee Whalers in the South Seas by A.B.C. Whipple 1954

I picked up this book at a library book sale about 4 years ago. I was a little torn buying it since I never gave much thought to whaling but I did already own In the Heart of the Sea in the Bibliotiki, which is about a doomed whaling voyage (not read yet). But I looked at the map and thought it looked interesting.

This book turned out to be pretty interesting. It has 12 chapters of stories about ships, including some stories that overlaped. I learned many things like if someone died at sea they usually tossed you overboard but with the officers they put you in a barrel of rum to preserve you. Kinda gives new meaning to "aged rum."

In the chapter about wives and children on ships it talked about six year old Laura Jernegan who kept a ships log while her father sailed the Roman on October 29, 1868. The very cool thing about our modern age is her is a link to her log. Fascinating stuff.

I rather enjoyed the last chapter where we find out the author is completely obsessed with maritime history and drags his wife and children to museums and libraries. I liked this quote as a cautionary tale to other martime fanatics " ...the Seaport Store can be counted on to provide for about half and hour of uninterrupted research; whether or not it is an expensive half hour depends upon how well you have brought up your wife." hmm

I wasn't loving the illustrations in the book, not really my kinda style.

But I did like the cute whale hiding under the dust jacket.

Breadfruit Trilogy by Celestine Vaite

2011-03-03T17:00:00.000-08:00

Breadfruit by Celestine Vaite. 2000

Frangipani by Celestine Vaite. 2004

Tiare in Bloom by Celestine Vaite. 2006

We were on vacation in Australia when I saw Breadfruit at a local bookstore. I came back home and interlibrary loaned it since it wasn't published in the US yet. The author is Tahitian and you don't see many women Tahitian authors who wind up with a success book trilogy. Sadly, I can't seem to find anything new the author has been working on and her website link doesn't work anymore.

The books are based on Materena Mahi the family matriarch and professional cleaner. She is raising a child, trying to get her drunk boyfriend to marry her and likes to sweep a lot. I wouldn't call these "chick lit" but they are on the lighter side of fiction. It does give you a interesting window into modern Tahitian society. I probably liked the last book the best because it had more of the male character which at times was a more interesting character then Materena.

If you are a fan of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency then this is for you. Fun, light and exotic reads. Only wish the author would write something new!

If anyone has any good suggestions for contemporary modern Polynesian authors, please leave them in the comment section.

Castaway by Lucy Irvine

2011-01-06T16:14:00.000-08:00

This book is a little out of my focus area of for the Bibliotiki since it is about a small island in the Torres Straights by Australia and within Melanesia. However, I do like to collect books by women authors for the collection. Though I usually don’t need them naked on the cover.

I also had to buy this book because it kept popping up in my life. A few weeks before our last Hawaii trip, we were in a small Californian college town and I saw they had a bookstore when looking for parking. This bookstore was a sad little affair where they hardly had any books but they had this book in hardcover for $4. I am kinda funny about the format of my books. For the Bibliotiki, if it is really old I like it with a dust jack and hardcover. If it is from about 1980 to present I rather have paperback. I prefer paperbacks since I commute on the bus and I am kinda tough on shoving books in my bag. I usually don’t like to travel with my older books since they are more delicate and heavier. So since this book was from 1983 and about Melanesia, I didn’t want it in hardcover. I told my husband this and he just called me cheap!

Flash forward a few weeks when we were in Oahu at a musty book and record store called Jelly’s. We were in Hawaii for a week and I had only packed one book. I have realized lately that I have been packing too many books for trips so for this trip I thought 1 would do me. It was a 450 page book but I was having trouble getting into it and was feeling a bit dumb not having a good book for my beach vacation. But there on Jelly’s shelf was a $2.98 beatup paperback copy of Castaway. The price and format were right so I suddenly had a beach book.

What a strange book. It is the nonfiction story of a British woman who accepts an ad in the newpaper for a man looking for a wife since the Australian goventment required this of them to live on uninhabited island. On the front of the book it says it was a best seller, I guess because she is always talking about being naked and there are some topless photos of her.

Also there is a great debate between her and her husband “G” about having sex. They had sex before they arrived on the island but then she didn’t want to anymore and he grew embittred and his health deteriorated. Not to imply that his health deteriorated due to lack of sex but I'm sure some men could make a case for it.

I must say if I had any dreams about being dropped off on a desserted island they where shattered reading this book. Between them running about out of fresh water to their near stravation and many infections, um no thanks. I’ll just stay at the Hilton thank you very much. They were saved by nearby islanders who adopted them once they discovered that G could fix their motors.

I found the book interesting until she broke down and finally had sex with him then it just got weird with all his sexual fantasies and their role playing. Ugh, please go back to talking about making your own fish hooks, that was more interesting.

While flying home from Hawaii we watched an old Hammer horror movie, the Curse of the Wearwolf with Oliver Reed. I am a fan of Oliver Reed so once we were home we were looking on netflix streaming and saw he was in a film called Castaway. Could it be based on the book I just read? Why yes! The movie was pretty close to the book as in she was naked a lot and G was a horny old bastard. Since it was Oliver Reed we did wonder how much was just drunken adlibbed.

This strange coicisdence had us learning more about Oliver Reed including watching a strange visit on Letterman and reading the book Hellraisers. Good lord those old British actors could drink.

Back to Castaway. Served its purpose as a good beach read and I got to learn more about Oliver Reed then I needed to know (a tattoo of a bird claw on his manhood??).

In closing, I do think it is ironic that G moved to this island to write a book about living on an island and here this young woman turns out a best seller were his book is like 1 cent on Amazon. Wonder how he felt about that?

Tahiti Landfall by William Stone

2010-08-22T09:39:00.000-07:00

Tahiti Landfall by William Stone. 1946

I found this book in the early days of the Bibliotiki and probably paid too much for it. Upon reading this Tahitian slice-o-life tale, I thought it was kind of a snooze. Mr. Stone talks about moving to Tahiti and his two live in helpers Teuru and her brother Tavae. Teuru is a teenage girl who appears topless in some of the photos included in the book. I did like that Quinn’s makes an appearance but if you are living in Tahiti in the 1940’s it better be. Eddie Lund also gets a mention.

Each chapter has a small pen and ink illustration, some nice, some unfortunate. Actually many unfortunate.

And has many cheesecake shots, er I mean photos of the natives.

Strangely, when I was trying to find out more about this book I saw that it was made into an Ester Williams movie called Pagan Love Song. The strange part is, that a day or so later I found this movie on VHS for sale at Goodwill. While the movie is not so great and doesn't follow the book that close (maybe not such a bad thing), it does have Charles Mauu, who is a famous Tahitian actor and musician. The movie also has Rita Moreno, playing a young Tahitian girl, which is just odd.

Another interesting fact, is one of the photos included in the book the adze man was also done in velvet by Leetag who was Stone’s neighbor.

From the book Leetag of Tahiti

Six Months in the Sandwich Islands by Isabella Bird

2010-06-13T13:30:00.001-07:00

Six Months in the Sandwich Islands : Among Hawai'i's Palm Groves, Coral Reefs and volcanoes. By Isabella Bird 1881, 1998

I decided a while back that I wanted to keep an eye out for books by women who travel to the South Pacific. I kept seeing this book but it was always for more then I wanted to spend. I eventually found it in paperback for $4 at a local bookstore.

I started to read this while on our vacation to Kauai since she visited Kauai. I made it to about page 20 then spent the next four months reading it off and on. While it was an interesting book, sometimes it was a bit of a slog with the tiny type and detail.

Isabella was an unmarried English woman who liked to travel. She wound up in Hawaii in 1873 at age 42 at the advice of her doctor to help ease her depression and back pain. She explored the islands in a way that is not possible in modern day. She traveled by horse which at first we might think "ok, yeah, I could see that." But remember that the ladies where suppose to ride sidesaddle. I have only ridden a horse a few times, but sidesaddle just sounds totally uncomfortable. In Hawaii the women rode like men which she soon adopted and wouldn't you know, her back pain was greatly improved.

The book is composed of letters to her sister in Scotland and are incredibly detailed. Often with humor especially when she is crossing paths with native cockroaches.

Some chapters are totally gripping like the one where her and a local woman are crossing torrents on their horses. I can't belive they weren't all killed. Or her on trails on the palis with the horse. She found in Hawaii that it was perfectly safe for a woman to travel alone and she often did. She would just hang out with the locals, sleep with them and only speak Hawaiian. Total imersion. But of course in a book this old you will get some observations from her that aren't PC by modern standards.

She made it to Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Kauai and the Big Island. She loved to explore the volcanos on the Big Island.

One thing I found interesting was she was obsererving Hawaii before it was annexed by America but not that long after the missionariers took hold.

If you are interested in Hawaii history, this is really a fascinating book. Not too many illustrations though. She talks about taking photos but I wasn't able to find any online. They would of been great if they could of been included in the book.

National Geographic October 1958

2010-05-16T19:01:00.001-07:00

The National Geographic Magazine. October, 1958.

I LOVE National Geographic. My dad use to have a subscription that I would read when I was young. The last few years I realized that they sometimes cover the South Pacific so I started to pick them up when I found them cheap. At one thrift store the more recent ones are 50 cents and older ones are $1.50. I scored a bunch of old ones cheap at Half Price books the other year because the cashier didn't know how to ring them up. Then next time I went to that Half Price Book they had them priced at $7!

I not only love the NG for the in depth articles on the South Pacific but for the old ads and other articles.

I debated if I should include them in my Bibliotiki site since they aren't books but I think they still fall under my mission statement due to great articles and nifty illustrations

In this issue, you get an article about Iraq and Bryce Canyon. I have always wanted to go to Bryce Canyon and the nice photography in this issue only added to my desire.

I scanned some of the ads. I like this one for a South Pacific cruise and a dinosaur skeleton for a whole $1!

This page and half on Africa I really like. I would love to go to Ethiopia and eat. The ad for South Africa with the kid and the pot is kinda odd.

Last but not least is the article on Fiji by Luis Marden. Mr. Marden spent a lot of time in the South Pacific for NG. NG bills it as " The Islands Called Fiji- With 2 Maps and 33 illustrations, 28 in color."

I have scanned some rather nice color ones.

I love the house in this shot. The colors remind me of the paintings in Head Hunting in the Solomon's. The article starts off with a Captain Bligh's reference to sailing through Fiji and staying the hell away from the cannibals. My apologies for not scanning the photo of Sanaila, age 96, the last cannibal.

Of course the article talks of kava but also of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philips visit, with a photo of them looking young and trim.

I can't imagine being a housewife in 1958 and reading this article and seeing the exotic photos, how it must of really felt like a far away mysterious land. I would like to go to Fiji one day but would probably be worried if I could get a wireless signal for my iphone while drinking a Miller lite. At least I have my old National Geographic's to take me back when foreign travel was more rare and real cannibals still existed.

Faery Lands of the South Seas by Nordhoff and Hall

2010-04-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

Faery Lands of the South Seas by James Norman Hall and Charles Bernard Nordoff. 1921

After I read Lure of Tahiti, I realized that Nordoff and Hall were a big deal in the world of South Pacific literature. I picked up Faery Lands for $15, 1st edition, no dust jacket at a local bookstore. Being cheap, $15 is about as much as I will spend but I liked the cover and wanted to read something by the fellows.

This is the first book they wrote together and in a future post I will review their Bounty trilogy, which is really what they are known for.

It starts with the authors in Paris at the end of World War I, dreaming of going to the south pacific. Somehow they made this happen because the book skips right into them about to make landfall on the island of Tahiti. At that point the authors went their separate ways but had made plans to rendezvous at a distant date.

One thing that is totally charming about this book are the illustrations throughout it. The one called Landfall precedes

different sections of the book.

Also included in the book are about 29 sketches in the book that really give you that island feel.

I am also a sucker for when you get a little illustration at the beginning of each chapter.

Content wise, some of the stories were really great and some kind of a snooze. The stories that Hall wrote I liked a little better. This book is great example of classic south pacific stories, though. If you want to read it immediately (and see more of the illustrations, but not the sketches) you can read it on Google Books. Or perhaps you would like to listen to it, well you can do that here.

If you want to learn more about James Norman Hall, click on the official site about him. One day I will make it to Tahiti for visit his museum.

And lastly, do you have a spare $17,500.00? If so then you can buy the whole collection of their books here. If anyone wants to buy it for me, I will write you a very nice thank you note!

Lure of Tahiti by A. Grove Day

2010-04-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

The Lure of Tahiti : An Armchair Companion Edited by A. Grove Day 1986

I found this at the used book store down the street (marked down 3 times to $4!). This was one of my earlier finds for my South Pacific Literature collection and would prove to yield much bounty.

This book introduced me to the world of Mutual Publishing based in Honolulu which is still in business and very active. It is nice to see when you are on vacation in Hawaii you can pick up some of their titles at the local store or gift shops. It is an inexpensive way to introduce people to Hawaiian/Polynesian culture, since most of their book are paperback.

The Lure of Tahiti is broken into 4 sections: The Sojourners, The Travelers, The Missionaries and The Explorers. Each section has a story by a different author. It includes some heavy hitters of Tahitian fiction like James Norman Hall and W. Somerset Maugham. But also has some historical accounts by William Blight and Louis Antoine de Bougainville.

My favorite thing about these compilation books by Mutual, is that before each new story they give you a little background on each author. The other good thing about comps, if you aren't into the story you can skip to the next one.

Overall, it is a good collection and a great introduction (list price $5.95 from Mutual, still in print) if you want to get a taste of some classic Tahitian focused stories.

Beyond The Coral Sea by Michael Moran

2010-03-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

Beyond the Coral Sea: Travels in the old empires of the South-West Pacific- Michael Moran 2003

After reading Head Hunting in the Solomon’s and her other book I got on a Papua kick. This book was sitting on the shelf at work on day and caught my eye. How could I pass up a cover like that.

Plus, since the other 3 books I had read about the region took place between the 1920’s- 1960’s I was interested in a more recent perspective.

I enjoyed the history of lesson of the region, who knew Germany owned so many islands and probably the most memorable part of the book for me was his brief mention of Errol Flynn.

I had honestly never given Errol Flynn much thought in my life, maybe I had seen a movie by him but probably not. But after reading about how Tasmanian born Flynn came to Rabaul in 1926 at the age of 17 to teach the locals about personal hygiene. While he was there he wound up running a plantation, buying a local 14yr old girl, and wresting crocodiles. All this made me want to read next Flynn’s autobiography “My wicked, wicked ways.” Which turned out to be the most entertaining, unbelievable thing I have read all year.

But back to Moran’s book. Of course he covers cannibals, missionaries and colorful explorers to the region. The book is humorous and educational. Also includes a good amount of black & white and color photos.

Even if you are just vaguely interested in the region, I highly recommend this entertaining and approachable book. Since it is in paperback, it would be an ideal book for a plane trip since it is a quick read.

Headhunting in the Solomon Islands & New Guinea Headhunt by Caroline Mytinger

2010-03-13T14:02:00.000-08:00

HEADHUNTING IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS: AROUND THE CORAL SEA by Caroline Mytinger, 1942

NEW GUINEA HEADHUNT by Caroline Mytinger, 1946

Awhile back I came down with a nasty cold. I called in sick for many days and decided I needed to read something different. The majority of the books in the Bibliotiki are written by men but a few years ago I picked up Headhunting in the Solomons, which is written by a woman and I thought I needed a change of perspective.

I wasn’t ever really interested in New Guinea, Solomon Islands or even Melanesia but I kept seeing this book in a few stores so I found a hardback copy for $2 and the price was right. I still need a dust jacket though.

I knew nothing about Caroline Mytinger and just started reading it. And then couldn’t stop reading it. Reading about her bouts with malaria made my bad cold suddenly seemed not so bad.

The book is a non-fictional account about a former society girl and artist and her friend Margaret go off to the Solomon Islands to paint portraits of the last remaining pure bred people before they are all gone or blood lines become diluted. I would think when they went in the 1930’s, this was not something people though or even cared about.

They started in San Francisco, then to Hawaii, Fiji, Australia and then the Solomons'. And as with all best laid plans, things went awry. They did get some portraits painted though. The book includes just black and white prints, which doesn’t do justice to the colorful paintings.

After I finished Headhunting, I then moved on to her second book New Guinea Headhunt, which was more of the same only in New Guinea. (full disclosure, New Guinea Headhunt I don’t own and had to get from the library).

Since these books were written in 1940’s, they of course are not politically correct by 2010 standards but I did think in comparing it to other books I have read from that time period, they don’t just lump all the “savages” together and do make a conscious effort not stereotype them or think they are ignorant or dumb just because their way of life is so different then the authors.

While I was finishing the book, my husband started doing some research on it and what we found made me even more interested in the author and story.

First we found this site is done by 2 women who have retraced the books and are working on a film of it. Check out the footage they have on their site, plus their own websites show what amazing photographers they both are.

These women also wrote an article that appeared in the Smithsonian, which you can read online:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/issues/2006/april/mytinger.php

And lastly here is a link to Caroline’s paintings at the Phoebe Hearst Museum in Berkeley, CA

Sadly, it appears that the painting aren’t on view.

I love both books pen and ink illustrations, here are some examples.

After reading both books I am amazed that any of the paintings even survived. I found Headhunting more engrossing and New Guinea not as good. I think her weariness shows through in the second book. But overall both books are great stories about strong, independent women. And of course what happens to people who are ahead of their times, when they came back to the states with their paintings, no one cared that much.

Headhunting might be on of my fave books in the Bibliotiki, so much so I think I need to re-read it again.

Introduction

2010-03-07T22:14:00.000-08:00

But first, before you get too comfortable lets have a look at our history. The Bibliotiki, first established in 2005 started as a small collection of South Seas Literature. Pretty much just consisting of Kon Tiki and Aku-Aku, the collection quickly grew via garage sales, thrift stores and bookshops.

In early 2007, Alohatiki rehauled her yet unnamed tiki room for the books where oozing all over the house and she soon forgot what she actually owned. When accidentally buying a second copy of Typee (she actually needs Omoo) she realized the need for her growing collection to be housed in one area and organized. And of course she needed a name. The books where then reorganized along with the growing tiki mug collection by island group (the books, not the mugs). A name for the room, with much brainstorming from Kahuna (he acquires many books for the collection), The Bibliotiki was born. But it then stalled to finally get kick started again when Alohatiki realized she was having trouble recalled what she had read already.

In this site Alohatiki, will highlight her collection and perhaps some other titles that she can only find via Inter Library Loan.

Two things she loves about the collection is some of the nifty covers/illustrations and that many of the books are from the 1920s/1930s for that look into the island before they became overrun with gangsta rap and video cassettes.

We hope you enjoy and feel free to comment or suggest titles via comments or alohatiki AT gmail DOT com

Thank you,

The Management

books

2008-12-19T14:14:00.000-08:00

coming soon....well alright, 2 years later. I've been busy reading!