Small Kine Book Club: February 21

Every six weeks we’ll read widely across genres—everything from memoir and oral history to fiction, poetry, and graphic novels—so long as the content is “queer.” Though we’ll prioritize work by local and Kānaka writers, we’ll also occasionally venture into the horny zeitgeist of books like Game Changers, the series that inspired Heated Rivalry.

About co-host/discussion moderators:

Mitchell Kuga is a writer and editor who runs Small Kine Gift with his gay husband.

Sean Oketani is bookseller at da Shop that enjoys reading queer literature.

About the book:

Generated from the oral histories of ten Kānaka Maoli kūpuna who are LGBTQ or māhū, The Mahele of Our Bodies reveals the way they experienced overlapping Native/Indigenous and LGBTQM+ identities. The book, published in 2025 by University of Hawai‘i Press, is filled with rich descriptions of Hawaiʻi’s unwritten queer history, from growing up in the late Territory era and Hawai‘i’s transition to a state, to vivid descriptions of Honolulu nightlife in the 1960s and 1970s, the impact of HIV/AIDS in the hula community, and first-person accounts of the activism and political debates surrounding same-sex marriage rights in the 1990s.

The book (in softcover) can be purchased at a discount at da Shop and Small Kine Gift. If accessibility is an issue please email [email protected]

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Host or Publisher da Shop: books + curiosities