At the first Hawai'i Book and Music Festival week before last, I landed a copy of the new book by my predecessor, Joan Namkoong. Her "Food Lover's Guide to Honolulu" (Bess Press, paper, $14.95) opens with a quick guide to local and Hawaiian foods and moves on to a guide to restaurants, specialty food shops, farmers markets, festivals and cooking classes, plus a chapter on deciphering Chinatown and a glossary of Island food terms. A very helpful feature is a geographic index showing where to eat and where to shop around Honolulu by neighborhood. Joan even slipped in a few recipes.

This is the book to hand a newcomer, a visiting foodie friend or a returning kama'aina who wants to know where to get the best saimin. Many of us have a visitor's closet — where we keep the snorkeling gear, guidebooks, the extra slippers and bathing suits and beach towels, the hats and pool toys and spare keys for friends and relatives who show up from time to time. Throw one of these in there.

But you also might want to have one in the car for yourself — you know, when you're trying to remember the name and location of that great health-food store in Kahala ('Umeke Market) or find that new wine shop in Chinatown (HASR Wine Co., 31 N. Pauahi).

Other new books of interest: