Connor Gifford, a 28-year-old man from Nantucket, was born with some extra chromosomes. Sometimes that little bit extra can be a burden; other times, a boon. But it will always mean that Mr. Gifford has Down syndrome.
Roughly one out of 1,000 people are born with Down syndrome. They share specific and easily-recognizable aspects of appearance and behavior, similarities in facial features, body type and difficulties with speech and cognition.
Law professor Ray Madoff will discuss her new book, Immortality and the Law: The Rising Power of the American Dead, on Thursday, July 15, 8 p.m. at the Chilmark Community Center. Described by the Financial Times as a “stunning polemic,” Ms. Madoff examines the distinctly American approach taken to the law of the dead; when it comes to property in America, the dead have greater control than anywhere else in the world.
West Tisbury-based author Paul Schneider is giving a talk, Finding the Narrative Voice in a World of Facts, this Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. Mr. Schneider is the author of several popular nonfiction titles, including the best-selling The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. His most recent work, Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend, was published last spring. Saturday’s talk will focus on Mr.
In 2008, South African-born documentary photographer and West Tisbury resident Alan Brigish set out on a journey that would become Breathing in the Buddha, a recently-published book that serves as an image-driven chronicle of everyday Buddhist life across Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Laos. This Saturday, May 29, Mr. Brigish will share some of the experiences he had along the way, illustrated with photographs and video clips, at the West Tisbury library at 4 p.m. The talk is free.
Emperor of Ocean Park author, Yale law professor and seasonal Islander Stephen L. Carter will discuss Why Democracy Needs Books, the subject of his next book, on Sunday, July 18 at 2 p.m. at the Vineyard Haven Public Library.
The event, with a reception following, is presented by the Friends of the Vineyard Haven Public Library.
When editor Judith Jones received the manuscript for Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, it was exactly what she had been looking for in her own kitchen. “And if I felt that way, there must be others out there,” Mrs. Jones said from her summer home in Vermont. For her and many Americans, it wasn’t just another cookbook. It was a teaching book.
The Vineyard Haven public library will host a Sunday afternoon talk with poet and novelist, the Rev. Judy Campbell, on Feb. 21 at 2 p.m. Judy will talk about the writing process and getting your work published. There will be time for questions, and an opportunity to hear Judy read from her work as a writer. The event is sponsored by the friends of the library.
Longtime Aquinnah seasonal resident Frances Tenenbaum was lauded last week in the Boston Globe’s Gardening Column as “one of the 20th-century’s outstanding American garden book editors.” Columnist Carol Stocker described the former Houghton Mifflin garden book editor as one “who helped elevate garden writing by American authors instead of following the book industry’s long trend of simply reprinting British garden books.”
