Books & Ideas
In this serialized novel set on the Vineyard in real time, a native Islander (“Call me Becca”) returns home after many years to help her eccentric Uncle Abe keep his landscaping business, Pequot, afloat. Abe has a paranoid hatred of Richard Moby, the CEO of an off-Island wholesale nursery. He is convinced that Moby wants to destroy Abe personally, as well as all Island-based landscaping/nursery businesses. Abe is now obsessed with “taking down” Moby before Moby can damage Pequot or any other Island grower.
Vineyard children’s author Kate Feiffer is too honest to stuff a ballot box. So not only is she wrestling with how to chop the bottom off her cardboard voting booth to make it kid-sized, she’s got to finesse her party schtick in case the littlest voters mark their ballots overwhelmingly for their moms, dads or selves rather than for Luke Pennybaker, the charismatic candidate in Ms. Feiffer’s latest book, President Pennybaker. They will get the chance to vote at the book’s national launch on Saturday at the Chilmark library.
The Vineyard Haven Library Evening Lecture Series continues its summer author program on Tuesday, August 19, at 7 p.m. with Vineyard artist Edward (Ted) Hewett speaking about cartooning. He will discuss work from his new book, Extreme Birding, a collection of cartoons published in June by Westmeadow Press of Martha’s Vineyard.
Writers Talking
Vineyard Haven authors Geraldine Brooks and Tony Horwitz, a rare pair with his and hers Pulitzers, are in conversation with Charlayne Hunter Gault on Sunday. The couple’s only Island book event this summer begins at 7.30 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center, with wine and cheese, book signing and reception to follow. Suggested donation is $25 to benefit the center’s educational programs.
On Wednesday, August 13, at 7:30 p.m. the Polly Hill Arboretum welcomes Ellie Altman as guest speaker for the 11th annual David H. Smith Memorial Lecture. Her lecture, Gardening Earth’s Green Mantle, focuses on land stewardship practices that foster a healthier and more beautiful world for all living things. She expands the definition of gardening to embrace conservation concerns: ecological restoration, land development, agriculture, and habitat protection to inspire the adoption of a land ethic.
Authors Cynthia Riggs and Tom Dresser will celebrate their mysteries on Tuesday, August 12, at 5 p.m. at the West Tisbury library.
Ms. Riggs, a 13th-generation Islander, lives in West Tisbury in her family homestead, now a bed-and-breakfast for poets and writers. Double Murder on Martha’s Vineyard combines her first two books, Deadly Nightshade and The Cranefly Orchid Murders. Her ninth book is scheduled for release next year. All of her books feature 92-year-old Victoria Trumbull, a poet sleuth based on Cynthia’s mother, Dionis Coffin Riggs.