Mark Leibovich’s new book This Town, a critical expose of the Washington power structure and New York Times best seller this summer, is as popular with the right as it is with the left. Or with anyone who believes that government is broken.

Steam rose from many, many mugs of coffee on Saturday morning as the Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival began at the Harbor View Hotel in Edgartown. More than 30 authors attended the two-day festival, participating in readings and panel discussions at the Harbor View on Saturday and on the grounds of the Chilmark Community Center on Sunday.

The book festival has been held on the Vineyard every other summer since 2005, conceived and organized by Suellen Lazarus, a seasonal resident of Chilmark.

For some it began with Go Dog Go, Busy, Busy Town or Green Eggs and Ham. The tears may have started with the dogs, Old Yeller, Sounder and Where the Red Fern Grows.

February 2013 marked the centenary of the birthof Rosa Parks, the African American seamstress from Montgomery, Ala., who became known as “the mother of the civil rights movement” after her courageous refusal to give up her seat on a public bus. The image of a tidy, genteel, quiet lady with her head held high remains emblazoned as a totemic image of the movement.

There is a large group of literature in the American canon referred to as “coming of age.” Though Susan Choi will discuss her new book, My Education, at a Saturday afternoon panel at the Harbor View Hotel entitled Coming of Age, she says it only partially belongs there.