A comprehensive look at history of Kaua'i's ali'i

By Wanda Adams
Advertiser Book Editor

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Good-Read Guide This month's selection: "The Territory of Men" by Joelle Fraser; Random House Trade Paperbacks, $12.95 (paperback release date is Tuesday) Next book announced: Aug 3 To post or read comments: Go to "Talk Back" link. To suggest a book: Go to "Talk Back" link. Write a mini-review, or just a paragraph or two offering your reasons for suggesting it. Or write: Wanda Adams, The Advertiser, PO Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802 or fax 525-8055. Listen: "Sandwich Islands Literary Circle," 9:30 tonight, KHPR 88.1 FM, KKUA 90.7 FM Maui, KANO 91.1 FM Hilo; or online, starting tomorrow.

Kaua'i's extraordinary researcher and historian Frederick B. Wichman has produced another in a series of books detailing for a broad audience the history of his home island. This one brings together for the first time all the stories, genealogies and histories that tell of Kaua'i's ruling families to the point when the Islands were unified into a kingdom in the 1820s.

His sources include virtually all the published materials on the subject as well as some private and unpublished manuscripts.

Wichman, who deserves the title haku ka'ao (storyteller), intersperses the "one thing after another" of history with mo'olelo (stories) in his own, well-chosen words.

This is an important and readable addition to any library of Hawai'i history and culture.