Wannasea Island is a universe almost unto itself. A small independent island, 45 minutes from the mainland. Abe Stolz has spent the entire 70 years of his life lost within the history of his family and the island. Abe knows that he should move forward but fears doing so will disconnect him from his wife and daughter, who were lost at sea 23 years before. Abe’s primary goal has become seeing that his granddaughter, Beth, the only surviving member of his immediate family, does not have her life consumed by the island and family history in the same manner. Neither the progress of the island nor his granddaughter are in tune with Abe’s efforts.

How does law transform family, sexuality, and community in the fractured social world characteristic of the colonizing process? The law was a cornerstone of the so-called civilizing process of nineteenth-century colonialism. It was simultaneously a means of transformation and a marker of the seductive idea of civilization. Sally Engle Merry reveals how, in Hawai'i, indigenous Hawaiian law was displaced by a transplanted Anglo-American law as global movements of capitalism, Christianity, and imperialism swept across the islands. The new law brought novel systems of courts, prisons, and conceptions of discipline and dramatically changed the marriage patterns, work lives, and sexual conduct of the indigenous people of Hawai'i.

Emphasizing the political discourse and conflict that have surrounded Japanese education, this book focuses on the three main issues of central versus local control, elitism versus equality, and nationalism versus universalism.

The Hostettler family continues to face an unseen enemy who randomly attacks their property. Despite the unrest, Ruth, the second oldest sister, is about to realize her greatest dream—to marry and raise a n family with Martin Gingerich. But in one horrific moment, her world is shattered. Can Ruth rise above the ashes of misfortune, with faith and heart intact or will she forever question her value as a wife? Esta Wengerd, one of six children, has lost her mother to tragedy and her father to depression. Can Ruth reach past her own pain to make a difference, or will Abe Wengred bar her interference—and stifle her healing?

When Kate MacKinnon hears that Nikki Trixx, a Waikiki prostitute, has been found murdered on a sacred Hawaiian he iau, she is appalled. To Hawaiians, a heiau luakini is the most sacred of shrines, for it is there that their ancestors offered up human sacrifices. Kate knows there will be trouble from politicians, Hawaiian sovereignty activists, and racists each group accusing the others of the desecration. Near Julia's body, Kate discovers a Holy card titled "Pride" a strange, terrifying creation straight out of Hiëronymus Bosch. As Kate struggles to solve the mystery of a Waikiki serial killer, we find ourselves caught in a carnival fun house mirror. Assumptions glimmer, alter, and magically disappear. When Kate is finally rescued from peril, we learn that friends and enemies, and the innocent and the guilty, are not always who they seem.

AL SEARS had it all. Once a hot-shot criminal lawyer, he had a trophy wife, a fortune, and a respected position in local Memphis society. But he also had a drinking problem-- one that cost him everything: his career, his wife, his fortune, and his self-respect. Now sober, Al Sears is a licensed PI and part-time clerk in Ralph's coin shop, with a small apartment, an old car, and a chair at the Thursday-night poker game in the apartment above the shop. But even this peaceful existence is shattered when a shotgun-wielding intruder tries to knock over the game. The robber attempts to take Al hostage, but Al, sensing that this is more than simple theft, tackles him, narrowly avoiding a blast from his gun, and two of the other players shot the man to death. Already shaken by the experience, Al learns from the responding police officers that his intuition was correct-- this was no simple robbery. The dead man was a known hired killer-- one of the deadliest. Al has to face the truth that someone is trying to kill him. Given his past, any number of people could be to blame. Given the alcoholic haze in which he lived for years, he may not even remember the person who's now out to get him. Al must look into his own past, determine who is trying to kill him, and stop them before they succeed...

A smart, accessible and funny cultural analysis of The Simpsons, its inside stories and the world it reflects. From Bart Simpson to Monty Burns, the Internet boom to the slow drowning of Tuvalu, Planet Simpson explores how one of the most popular shows in television history has changed the way we look at our bewildering times. Award-winning journalist Chris Turner delves into the most esoteric of Simpsons fansites and on-line subcultures, the show’s inside jokes, its sharpest parodies and its ongoing love-hate relationship with celebrity to reveal a rarity of literary accomplishment and pop-cultural import — something never before achieved by a cartoon. Complementing its satirical brilliance, The Simpsons boasts a beloved cast of characters, examined here in playful and scrupulous detail: Homer, selfish, tyrannical and not too bright, but always contentedly beholden to his family; Bart, pre-teen nihilist and punk icon; Lisa, junior feminist crusader; and Marge, archetypical middle-American mother, perpetually dragging her family kicking and screaming to higher moral ground. And while the voice actors behind the regular cast have eschewed celebrity, Turner considers why a stunning host of guests — Hollywood icons and has-beens, politicians, professional athletes, poets and pop stars — have submitted themselves to the parodic whims of the Simpsons’ writers. Intelligent and rambunctious, absorbing and comic, Planet Simpson mines this modern cultural institution for its imaginative, hilarious, but always dead-on, reflections on our world. Excerpt from Planet Simpson Three Fun Facts About “D’ oh!” 1. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “d’oh” as “Expressing frustration at the realization that things have turned out badly or not as planned, or that one has just said or done something foolish.” 2. The origins of “D’oh!” A Tracey Ullman– era Simpsons script called for Homer to respond to an unfortunate turn of events thus: “[annoyed grunt].” Dan Castellaneta, the voice-actor who plays Homer, improvised the exclamation, “D’oh!” It stuck. 3. The godfather of “D’oh!” Dan Castellaneta freely admits that he lifted Homer’s famous yelp from James Finlayson, a Scottish actor who played a bald, cross-eyed villain in a number of Laurel & Hardy films in the 1930s. Finlayson’s annoyed grunt was a more drawn-out groan — Doooohhh! Castellaneta sped it up to create Homer’s trademark.