Page 14 RAIN April 1982 ACCESS From: Hawai'i Hawai'i GOOD THINGS Hawai'i Hawai'i, by Rick Golt, 1981,128 pp., $19.95, from: The University Press of Hawaii 2840 Kolowalu Street Honolulu, HI 96822 This beautiful black and white photo book reminds me more of The Last Picture Show than of South Pacific. I think you'd have to look pretty carefully to capture, as Golt did, this more intimate small town Hawaiian paradise. This is a Hawaii of general stores, overgrown roads, and community kickball competition. This is a laid back and friendly down-home sort of place in contrast to the tourist tartishness we too often see marketed as our fiftieth state. It presents a quandary. I'd like to go there, but I'd like to be invisible to do it. I would not want to interrupt the conversation on the front porch or the back seat naps of a car full of kids. I'd rather backpack in and cart out my garbage, leaving no mark of my passing—much as Golt seems to have done. My congratulations to him! — Carlotta Collette BUILDING Housing Innovations Handbook, by Cecil E. Cook Jr., 1981, looseleaf notebook, $20.00 plus $2.00 postage and handling, from: ATEX Press P.O. Box 8264 Columbus, OH 43201 I've read about most of these innovations in magazines, but nowhere else are so many exciting, practical ideas gathered together. All owner-builders, small scale contractors. and low-cost housing activists deserve a copy. Among the 101 innovations covered are massive masonry furnaces, native vegetation lawns, truss-framed houses, soil cement paving/walkways, electric bed warmers, plastic plumbing, root cellars, surface bonding of concrete blocks, point-of-use water heaters, multi-fuel burning furnaces, all-weather wood foundations, and earth air tempering tunnels. The information is in the form of technology briefs—about two to four pages on each innovation giving a technical description, advantages and disadvantages, distribution and extent of use, and technical assistance, principal references, sources, and plans. Like any good reference book, it tells you enough so you'll know if you're interested and then tells you where to go to learn more. Some briefs aren't as thorough or as critical as I'd like, but given the plethora of references, that's a minor drawback. Most briefs include information on cost savings, prices, and brand names. There's no priority system (what to do first, what saves most money).
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