As a coastal homeowner, have you ever wondered where to get technical, yet easy to understand information about minimizing erosion concerns on your property? Or as a contractor have you thought about how vulnerable your building is to a hurricane? If you have, then the new book by Dennis Hwang, Hawaii Coastal Hazard Mitigation Guidebook, is a must read. At 242 pages with 13 summary tables and 80 color figures displaying the geographical variability of hazard risk in Hawai‘i, the guidebook is an informative, technical resource and an interesting read. Designed for a wide and varied audience from planners and architects to homeowners and government agencies, the guidebook complements the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Costal Construction Manual with a special emphasis on land use planning and siting. The purpose of the guidebook is as a resource to reduce the risk to coastal development by planning for natural hazards such as erosion, flooding, tsunamis and hurricanes. Topics covered in the guidebook include coastal and bluff erosion, flooding, wave inundation, hurricanes and tsunamis. Since the dangers for each of these hazards overlap, four hazard zones are identified that take into account how these hazards might act in particular regions. The guidebook is a useful tool for anyone interested in reducing risk from natural hazards.