James A. Michener · 1959 · sea

James Michener's 1959 epic of the islands. Around 814 AD, fleeing a cruel new god, the Bora Boran prince Teroro leads a great canoe north across empty ocean to discover Hawaii. A thousand years later a brig of stern New England missionaries under Abner Hale beats the other way - down the Atlantic and round the terrible Cape Horn - to reach the same shores, where old world and new collide.

1. 1
   Bora Bora

   Around 814 AD, rather than bow to a bloodthirsty new god demanding human sacrifice, the prince Teroro loads a great double canoe with sixty people, plants and animals and steers north into the unknown ocean by the stars.

2. 2
   Hawaii

   After a desperate voyage the Bora Borans make landfall on the empty volcanic islands of Hawaii, carrying with them their gods, their crops and the fire goddess Pere - the first people ever to live there.

3. 3
   Boston

   A thousand years later, a young divinity student named Abner Hale and a handful of stern New England missionaries board a small brig at Boston, bound for the far Pacific to bring their creed to a people they have never seen.

4. 4
   Cape Horn

   The missionaries' long voyage south down the Atlantic climaxes in the battle to round Cape Horn, where mountainous seas and screaming wind pit faith and seamanship against the deadliest passage in the world.

5. 5
   Lahaina

   The brig at last reaches Hawaii, landing the missionaries at Lahaina - and the collision of the old Polynesian world with the new begins, remaking the islands and everyone on them for good.