What are you reading?

I'm just reading "Don Ho: My Music, My Life" by (Don Ho and) Jerry Hopkins. It's fascinating. I'm also reading "Latinization of America," which is a big book, 1,100-some pages, written by Eliot Tiegel, an old friend of mine; when I met him he was editor of Billboard magazine. And I just finished up "Red Sky at Night" by Bill Bigelow. It's a novel. It's really good.

How did you discover them?

I was involved in the Don Ho book because (Hopkins) also wrote my book "Showman of the Pacific." So I helped Jerry a bit on this, because Don died suddenly and (Jerry) was trying to finish it up. I get most books from people I know or, as a columnist, people send me a lot of books.

What do you like about the Hopkins book?

In Don's book, there are so many memories in there ... It reviews all the people that went to see him and his life and a lot of things people didn't know about him and I didn't know about him.

And the others?

It has always fascinated me how all of a sudden everything is bilingual in the U.S. And ("Red Sky at Night," a 2005 thriller by a former Navy officer and newsman here) is fascinating. It's about something that's hard to believe could happen, but it could.

Your concert-promoting has made your life an adventure — so do you also look for fascinating adventures in your reading?

Yes. ... The way I move, sometimes it's hard to stay with a book, though, but I love books that I can't put down.