Honolulu

Staying in Honolulu for five days, mostly for conference as what I do this week, won't cover much for first-timers to O‘ahu. 

Mark Twain spent four months in Hawaii for the newspaper Sacramento Union. Paul Theroux, a prolific travel writer and novelist, stayed there for three decades. 

To make up for my short stay, I borrowed Paul Theroux's fiction, Hotel Honolulu. Paul Theroux strings together dozens of guests staying in a tumble-down hotel. That's how I know more about Hawaii. And oh, my experience is very different. My hotel doesn't have rats running around. I don't have that much exotic (absolutely not sexual) encounters, of course. 

Still, his book is a good companion to anyone visiting Honolulu. Even without much chance to try Native Hawaiian cuisine or drinks, there's at least chance for me to hear about kawa (a ceremonial drink made from a root plant), poke (spiced-up cubes of raw marinated fish), loco moco (a dish of rice, fried egg and hamburger patty topped with gravy).

I had tried the last item at campus cafeteria today, by the way. 

Wit

Almost everyone gets an impression after reading the opening lines of a book. And every author wants to write an opening hook to keep readers coming back.

Trust me, this is getting more important. Now that our attention span is shrinking, readership is losing the battleground from competitors like Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest.

Fredrik Backman, the Swedish author of My Friends, is one of the best qualified. His book starts with the statement that teenager is the best kind of human. Why is this so? The answer from Fredrik Backman is very simple. Here's how: little children think teenagers are the best humans, and teenagers think teenagers are the best humans, the only people who don't think that teenagers are the best humans are adults. 

Which is obviously because adults are the worst kind of humans.

This is as naughty as knock-knock joke, but it works for readers of all ages. 

Taylor

If Taylor Jenkins Reid's novel were a pill, it should come with a warning label about addiction. In other words, you'd be expected to keep turning pages. Then you finish one and start another book of hers. 

The point is that you can never have enough of stories crafted by Taylor Jenkins Reid. 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo set in the sixties. Daisy Jones & The Six about seventies rock and roll. Malibu Rising in the eighties.

When it comes to Malibu Rising, we are reminded how family histories repeat. We recognise this all too well in the characters. The more we read about the life of Nina Riva, the more we see the way she resembles her mother. Both of them won't turn on lights for longer than enough. They won't waste money on La Mer skincare to do for crow's feet. They simply use Noxzema.

The same goes for Nina's father and husband, who keep cheating. Maybe our parents' lives are indeed imprinted within us. 

Try as you might, you won't be able to outrun the blood that runs through our veins. And try as you might, you won't be able to stop reading Taylor Jenkins Reid's stories. My daughter and I had finished reading all three books of hers.

Bookshelf

I have fond memories of bringing a suitcase with books for my daughter every time we flew. Biff, Chip and Kipper series. The Magic School Bus books. Story books by Julia Donaldson, Roald Dahl, or Judy Blume. Next to my daughter's books, we'd put one or two for ourselves. 

Years later, after so many family trips, our suitcases were still crammed with books. There isn't any real difference. Perhaps the most important change is the merging choice of books for our family. 

My wife and I don't worry much about running out of books on the road. We simply borrowed novels from our daughters. Say, Jasmine had brought with her quite some good selection from Taylor Jenkins Reid during our Norwegian trip. 

The only difficulty for me, honestly, is to choose between Malibu Rising, Atmosphere, and Daisy Jones & The Six, after I had finished mine.

Whale

Summer is always my favourite time to read and this is also the season for our family vacation. 

A useful guide for book choice is the theme of our trip. An essential read after a sea turtle island stay, as what we experienced last month, would be a book written by marine biologist. 

This week, we traveled to Andenes located in the Vesterålen in Northern Norway. Long a popular whale safaris excursion destination, Andenes is the prime location for meeting humpbacks and sperm whales. Once you have seen them, it's impossible to forget, just as if you never saw them, it would be impossible to describe.

To go with the whale watching experience, my book of choice is Fathoms: The World in the Whale. Rebecca Giggs wrote this book, the winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, after pushing a beached humpback whale back out into the sea. For the three days that humpback eventually expired off the coast of Perth, Rebecca Giggs experienced a very personal reflection on our relationship with sea creatures. Her narrative on whalefall is scientific and romantic at the same time. Whalefall, in case you haven't heard of this term, is what happened after whales died in mid-ocean without being washed into the shallows. Their massive bodies sink and decompose on the descent. The journey of being pecked at by seabirds, fish, swimming crabs, and sharks, lasts for weeks or months. 

The bones and the decomposing blubber of the dead whale turn out to be untold stories of our ecosystem, embedded into the mysterious basement floor of the Earth. A deep story: deeper than I could have fathomed.

Henningsvær

If you run long enough and rack up enough birthdays, you'll find your watch registering a slower and slower pace. Even that's the case, older runners aren't at higher risk of walking away. One simple trick for me to keep the motivation is to follow a mix of playful plans. 

So when I got a chance to travel to Lofoten's tiny village of Henningsvær, I knew I should head for the famous football pitch. Located just within a few feet of cliffs, the green field of Henningsvær Stadium is the most picturesque football pitch in the world. Running a lap around the track will guarantee me an otherworldly ocean view. 

That means I can switch from tempo run to all-out sprint depending on the viewpoint on the track. No matter which I choose, the goal is to make the run an enjoyable experience. To make sure I would never forget the experience, I ran there twice within one day. 

Trust me, you will never get tired running at Henningsvær Stadium. 

Doppler

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm had been collecting fairy tales and folklore for years in Germany. The Brothers Grimm didn't travel to Norway, otherwise they should have picked up the fable Doppler from Erlend Loe, one of Norway's bestselling novelists. Or else, those from Roald Dahl, born to Norwegian parents and named after polar explorer Roald Amundsen.

I've been thinking about the choice of novels to bring on my Norway trip. The Kafkaesque story of Doppler, a captivating blend of humour and absurdity, offers a joyful treat. 

Here is the plot: Andreas Doppler isn't sure if he is a failed man of his time. Or just a man of a failed time. He takes off into the forest around Oslo, leaving a note telling his family not to expect him for dinner. He runs out of food, ambushes and kills a mother elk. He adopts the calf elk, and names the calf Bongo.   

The friendship between Doppler and Bongo, as it turns out, is a whimsical one.