Unfamiliar Fishes is a nonfiction book by This American Life contributor Sarah Vowell, first published in 2011 in print and audiobook versions.
Pretty solid history of 19th century Hawaii, describing the arrival of New England missionaries to "save" the "savages". Too much crazy time religion for me, but at least Ms. Vowell is very sympathetic to that viewpoint.
I may have been tougher to please this time, because I'm not entirely sure what it is that this book needed to get full marks. The subject is interesting and Vowell, as usual, inserts herself and her wit into the history in just the right amounts. It could be that the 'characters' were not as vividly drawn in Unfamiliar Fishes as they were in, say, Assassination Vacation. It might be that Vowell has done a brilliant job in past works of showing me a fresh view of historical material that seemed fairly well settled while I had no particular knowledge of the history of Hawaii - therefore, she doesn't get to challenge any preconceived notions I may have gleaned from high school history.
And, finally, this one's kind of a bummer. (There, I said it.)
The history of the colonization of Hawaii, told in the compelling way that only Sarah Vowell can pull off. The early missionaries were so pure and self-sacrificing in their motivation, and so destructive in their effects. While the imported diseases ravaged the Hawaiians, they also became (probably) the most literate society in the world -- in the literature brought by the Americans.
