What are you reading?

A recent Bishop Museum Press release of "Kepelino's Traditions of Hawai'i." ... (Also) "The Future of Life" by Edward O. Wilson ... an important examination of the vulnerability of global biodiversity. ... And there are a few I always carry around in my backpack to read on planes and such. One is the "Tao Te Ching" by Lao-tzu, and I always have a Calvin and Hobbes collection. That's how I get my philosophical grounding.

What stands out about Wilson's and Kepelino's books?

The thing I like about "The Future of Life" is it's one of those books that's able to take a very complex subject and walk through it logically so when you finish the book, you have a very good understanding of what biodiversity is, why it's important, what can be done to preserve it, and why we should do that. ... What stands out to me about Kepelino is it's written in the original voice and not interpreted by later historians, whether Western or Native Hawaiian. ...

Do they inform your thinking about how to help the voices of the past be heard while also envisioning the museum's future?

The museum is the official museum of cultural and natural history, so obviously the Native Hawaiians knew that went hand-in-hand. ... Reading these books at the same time exercises the different sides of my brain. It gets me thinking about Kepelino and Native Hawaiians at that time, how they viewed conservation and biodiversity and how humans interacted with the natural environment and vice versa, and then connecting that with reading a Western-trained scientist talk about the same things from a different perspective is very interesting.