I had heard about this book and about this author, Tom Peek, who conducts writing workshops at his home in Volcano. Kona Stories had him as a guest author one Saturday during the holidays, and I went to get his book, to support Small Business Saturday, and to meet him. He is a very tall, and nice man. But that is not the point of the review. I enjoyed this exploration of clashes between development and the spirit of Hawaii through his interesting characters. A Hawaiian activist and an Australian astronomer are central, but there are other "supporting" characters as well. Some of the dialogue bothered me, the way he had some locals talk didn't ring true. He explains in his notes at the end that he did that deliberately for readability sake. I don't know about that, but he tells a good story and makes solid points. 

Few people know this about me, but I have a collection of graphic novels. I can write more about this obsession on a blog post, but I bought these two by the same artist last year in Seattle, Gene Luen Yang. The Eternal Smile also has work by Derek Kirk Kim. I'll focus on Yang, but I recommend both books. Yang has a way of combining "real life" with fantasy. It seems like he's hopping all over the place with different threads of stories. I guess that's normal these days, if you consider a lot of TV, documentaries, and even features. But in the end, the threads all tie together. He strings you along with great characters, art, and different compelling stories. You wonder, what's going on here?  In the end, it all comes together.  

I couldn't help but think that so much has NOT changed as I watched the story about African-American struggle for voting rights. One of the first criticisms I heard was that LBJ was not an obstructionist and so this film should be discredited because they portrayed him as such. When I watched it, I didn't see it that way. LBJ was a good man, who did sincerely believe in voting rights, but he was also a tactical politician. That came across, but it was not a big part of the story, in my opinion. The main lesson is that people DO need to be reminded of the struggle and that there was real hatred, real racism, which continues today. My hope is that people who are critical of the protests over Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and others will be more compassionate by being reminded (or perhaps told for the first time) of the context, and the struggle, for full civil rights. 

The subtitle is "10 ways to share your creativity and get discovered." The way this guy writes is as if he is your friend and he wants to help you. His premise is that sharing and showing your work is key to unlocking creativity. I learned many things, but one main thing was registering a domain name. Then build a website. After reading that, that is what I did. Here is another young person that seems to be doing well as an entrepreneur and creative person. Not only that but he shares! Hero status.