Q. What are you reading?

A. One is the "Blue Skin of the Sea" by Graham Salisbury, about life in the Kailua, Kona, area as seen through the eyes of teenagers from the mid-(19)50s to mid-'60s. I'm also reading a more serious book by James Kunstler called "The Long Emergency," … a very insightful look at the end of the age of petroleum. But I do enjoy reading biographies from time to time, so I'm reading "Babe" by Robert Creamer, the biography of Babe Ruth. I'm a baseball fan, too, so it drew me to that. …

Q. What resonates in Salisbury and Kunstler's books?

A. The Salisbury book gives me a great snapshot of a style and pace of life on the Leeward coast that is less evident now. … The Kunstler book is frightening in many ways, but it's also inspiring in the way it exhorts the reader to get his or her head out of the sand and really begin thinking about what we do as the age of plentiful oil comes to an end. One would think the subject could be quite dry, but he has a real ability to turn a phrase, and it's a very interesting read.

Q. How does Salisbury's look at a past Hawai'i era and Kunstler's view of our global future influence your efforts to implement necessary change, such as HPA's five-year sustainability plan?

A. The Kunstler book lays all the groundwork for why some of the sustainability initiatives we've done here are important. His book leaves no stone unturned for why we need to think about more energy initiatives that are much more creative than what we've relied on for the past 100 years. … It'll be the back of everyone's minds as we construct our natural energy lab, which should come online in 2010. And the Salisbury book gives me context. I come from Virginia, and books like this in narrative form give me a picture of the culture and the Big Island that I wouldn't normally have.