Books & Ideas
In the midst of Hanukkah, children’s author Sarah Marwil Lamstein polishes up timeless motifs about the mysterious ways of God in Letter on the Wind: A Chanukah Tale, her dexterous retelling of a folktale from the Middle East.
She will share the book on Friday, Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m. upstairs at the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore on Main street in Vineyard Haven.
The Journals of Constant Waterman, Paddling, Poling, and Sailing for the Love of It. By Matthew Goldman, Breakaway Books, Halcottsville, N.Y. 2007, page 336. $14.
Matthew Goldman has sailed into Vineyard waters with his book The Journals of Constant Waterman. Boat enthusiasts and especially wanna-be boat enthusiasts will enjoy the short stories assembled between the cover. His trade is boat repair and maintenance and a lot of other crafts. He lives in Stonington.
Geraldine Brooks has never written an entirely fictional book. She does not even think she could. She spent too many of her writing years, she says, “in service of the facts,” practicing journalism.
In a way she still does practice journalism, for her novels are born of news judgment rather than imagination. The initial inspiration for every book is invariably a true story, and a particular sort of story, in which only a few compelling facts are known, but the detail is missing.
Dharma teacher Choepel will make his first visit to The Bodhi Path Buddhist Center in West Tisbury for two teachings on Sunday, Nov. 25 at 10 a.m. and Tuesday, Nov. 27 at 7 p. m. The topic is What Does Spirituality Have To Do With Me?
Lama Choepel will discuss the benefits of preparing solid foundations for the Buddhist path.
REGGAE SCRAPBOOK. By Roger Steffens and Peter Simon. Insight Editions. San Rafael, Calif.. 2007. 154 pages. $45 hardcover with DVD.
It was Winston Churchill who said history is written by the victors. Not on this Island and not under the watch of oral historian Linsey Lee.
“One of my goals in doing oral histories on the Vineyard is to give a voice to the voiceless,” Ms. Lee said Saturday during a workshop on the practices of oral history. “Too often, history is from the famous people, people on the high, but in the everyday people there is such an incredible knowledge, a wealth of knowledge. And, it’s a more real knowledge.”