
(Book #45) Rosalie hosted our first book of the new year and welcomed a new member, Linda, with wine, orchids, and the traditional plate lunch. The plate lunch included a Hawaiian roll sandwich of pork, a salad, rice and coleslaw. For dessert we had ice cream with pineapple, chocolate and shaved coconut rather than the ‘shave ice’ President Obama encourages. The discussion included talk of the missionaries and their influence in the Hawaiian Islands and related books some of us have read such as Hawai’i by James Mitchner and Sarah Vowell’s Unfamiliar Fishes. Most of us enjoyed the book; the biggest criticism was that it seemed the central character was required to experience everything significant to the Island of Moloka’i as part of her own personal story because the author had to use all the interesting material he’d found in his research.