Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai'i?By Jon M. Van DykeUH Press; 485 pages; $28Reviewed by Christine ThomasPublished 6/22 in the Honolulu AdvertiserThe eponymous query of UH Manoa law professor Jon M. Van Dyke's book "Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai'i?" is answered before it properly begins, when in the introduction Van Dyke echoes the 1993 Apology Resolution and asserts: "Native Hawaiians have be...

What I'm Reading | Rachel RossIronman Triathlete, Web DesignerQ&A with Christine ThomasJanuary 2008-What are you reading?I just finished reading "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" because I didn't know anything about Barack Obama, but I knew he was a local boy and wanted to learn more about him. I'm not a political person so I'm trying to get more knowledgeable before the...

The Heart of Being HawaiianBy Sally-Jo BowmanWatermark; 232 pages; $16.95Reviewed by Christine ThomasPublished 6/22 in the Honolulu AdvertiserIn the foreword to "The Heart of Being Hawaiian," Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson equates Sally-Jo Bowman's quest to uncover her Hawaiian identity with "a voyage in words." And indeed Bowman's heartfelt solo journey undertaken through freelance writing elo...

The last of the Chicago five reviews, a mesmerizing tale of life by Wang Anyi.The Song of Everlasting SorrowBy Wang AnyiTranslated by Michael Berry and Susan Chan EganColumbia; 440 pages; $29.95Without delving into historical and political intricacies, Wang Anyi's novel "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" tells a story of post World War II Shanghai by first laying out the city in laborious detail—pa...

What I'm Reading | Tom MoffattConcert PromoterQ&A with Christine ThomasJanuary 2008-What are you reading?I'm just reading "Don Ho: My Music, My Life" by Jerry Hopkins. It's fascinating. I'm also reading "Latinization of America: How Hispanics Are Changing the Nation's Sights and Sounds" which is a big book, 1100 some pages, written by Eliot Tiegel, an old friend of mine; when I met him he was e...