The best history of Tuvalu is H. Laracy's Tuvalu, A History. It was published in 1983.The People's Lawyer by Philip Ells is an amusing and insightful account of a young VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) lawyer's spell in Tuvalu. The book caused great interest in the island when it was released - everybody knew some of the characters personally.Transit of Venus - Travels in the Pacific, by Julian Evans, is a travelogue of the author's mordant, Dantean boat-hopping around the Pacific. While focussing on more developed locales such as Fiji and Western Samoa, his bleak, jaded view of the 'decay' of the Pacific is fascinating in light of 'advances' in Tuvalu.In The Happy Isles of Oceania - Paddling the Pacific, the perpetually morose Paul Theroux vies with the above author for the title of Most Cynical Pacific Traveller. It's a tie.The Material Culture of Tuvalu is an ethnological study of the peoples of Tuvalu.Australian economist TI Fairbairn's Tuvalu: Economic Situation and Development Prospects was written in 1993, but is probably already out of date. For a better understanding of Tuvalu's place in the regional economy, though, it's still worth a look.