Hawaii
James Michener, 1959
Michener follows Hawaii from undersea geology to plantation politics, asking who gets to call the islands home.
James Michener
James Michener's novels tend to begin long before their characters, with geology, ice or a dying lake, then move forward through centuries of ordinary families caught in large historical forces. «Chesapeake» follows four hundred years on Maryland's Eastern Shore through the families, canoes, storms and wars that shaped the bay, and «Poland» covers a thousand years of one village, its castle and palace, and the ordinary families who outlast every occupying power. You would want these if you like the long view: how a place and its people are made over generations, and how the same land keeps changing hands.
Feels like awe, wonder and curiosity.
Start with Hawaii.
Michener served as a Navy historian in the South Pacific during WWII; his Tales of the South Pacific won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize.
What every newcomer to the islands had to bring, or perish.
Therefore, men of Polynesia and Boston and China and Mount Fuji and the barrios of the Philippines, do not come to these islands empty-handed, or craven in spirit, or afraid to starve. There is no food here. In these islands there is no certainty. Bring your own food, your own gods, your own flowers and fruits and concepts. For if you come without resources to these islands you will perish... On these harsh terms the islands waited. Books by James Michener
Centennial
James Michener, 1956
A scholar’s journey through the massive changes of a rapidly modernizing America, tracking ambition, history, and the sheer scale of cultural transformation.
The Covenant
James Michener, 1980
A sweeping novel of South Africa, from a prehistoric clan beside a dying lake to the modern state, told through the people who claimed the land.
Chesapeake
James Michener, 1978
Four centuries on Maryland's Eastern Shore, told through the families, canoes, storms and wars that shaped the bay.
Space
James Michener, 1982
Michener turns the race to space into a sprawling human story of rockets, war, ambition and the people who risk everything to leave Earth.
Poland
James Michener, 1983
A thousand years of Poland seen through one village, its castle, its palace and the ordinary families who outlast every occupying power.
Texas
James Michener, 1985
Michener follows Texas from colonial Mexico to the oil age, tracing the people and collisions that made a state feel like a nation.
Alaska
James Michener, 1988
A vast historical novel that starts with drifting tectonic plates and builds Alaska from rock, ice, animals and the peoples who crossed into it.
Authors with a similar feel
Read pages from books like this, one at a time
BookFeed is a feed of real passages from real books. It learns what moves you and finds your next book.
Open BookFeedFree, no sign-up.