"108 Tips on Business, Travel, and Culture in China," by Eddie Flores Jr. and Elisia Flores (self-published, $9.88)

After visiting China over the course of 60 years, Eddie Flores, owner of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, has written a slim, portable travel guide with daughter Elisia. Useful info on history and culture is interspersed with fun cartoons by Jon J. Murakami.

The tone is lighthearted, the advice serious. A "friendly and vivacious" tour guide turned "hostile and caustic" when a tourist mentioned the Cultural Revolution, according to Flores, so it’s wise to avoid politically sensitive issues. Other tips: "Find out who the boss really is" and "Just eat without asking and looking."

"Volcanoes National Park," by Jeanette Foster (Arcadia, $21.99)

Composed mostly of black-and-white photographs and deep captions, this album-like overview of Big Island active volcanoes recounts snippets of Hawaiian history and stories of Pele and the original human settlers who sailed here looking "for a mythical land that was lit by fire." Nowadays, more than 1.5 million visitors visit the national park every year.

Fire and brimstone buffs of all ages will feast their eyes on craters and fountains galore from every era. Shots of crater’s-rim dances and pageants, the now-buried Queen’s Bath at Kalapana, footprints in ashes and Halemaumau brimming with fire are evocative and stirring.

"Abroad at Home: The 600 Best International Travel Experiences in North America," by the editors of National Geographic Traveler (National Geographic, $24.95)

For those craving a taste of foreign parts, every place in "Abroad at Home" was selected because it looks and feels like someplace else: elements of Greece in Nebraska, Sweden in Kansas, the Middle East in Michigan and French Acadia in Maine.

Scotland can be found in Nova Scotia and during the Highland Games in Ala Moana Park. Kauai, no surprise, is touted as "You Could Be In … The South Pacific."

Hawaii’s multicultural ancestry provides multiple openings into other worlds, and the book features just a few of these: our Japanese temples, Irish pubs, the Islamic wonders of Doris Duke’s Shangri La. Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park is depicted as exactly what it is — Pele’s country.

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By Mindy Pennybacker, mpennybacker@staradvertiser.com