It might not be an author’s first choice to publish a book during a pandemic, but nevertheless an astonishing number of Islanders (and Island-lovers) wrote and published books this year, much to our benefit.
Awards and rave reviews flowed in: Jennifer Smith Turner’s Child Bride won best fiction e-book for 2020 by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and BiblioBoard. Skip Finley’s Whaling Captains of Color: America’s First Meritocracy was the 2020 Nonfiction Regional History Winner in the International AAHGS (African-American Historical and Genealogical Society) Book Awards. Alice C. Early’s The Moon Always Rising won the 2020 Indie Excellence Award for Women’s Fiction, plus two other awards.
You can check out the big roster of Island-penned and -themed books published in 2020 in the impressive list below. Any would make a good holiday gift.
For more holiday ideas, we also asked Molly Coogan, manager of Bunch of Grapes bookstore in Vineyard Haven, for suggestions. She pointed to a few new titles coming out this fall, starting with the first volume of Barack Obama’s memoir, A Promised Land, just published on November 17.
From another long-time favorite Vineyard author and illustrator, Susan Branch, comes a charming childhood tale called Home for Christmas. Two other gift books (from non-Island authors) that Molly recommends are The Backyard Birdwatcher’s Bible by Paul Sterry, a beautiful and practical book that will appeal to both experienced bird watchers and novices, and a handsome new hardcover edition of The New York Times bestselling Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
2020 Vineyard Books
In Praise of Protected Lands and Special Places on Martha’s Vineyard , by Tess Bramhall
Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, by Nicholas Basbanes
Home for Christmas, by Susan Branch
Old Enough: How 18-Year-Olds Won the Vote & Why it Matters, by Sheri J. Caplan
Everybody Lies, by Emily Cavanagh
Martha’s Vineyard Burning: A Tragicomic Memoir of Drugs, Sex, and Arson, by David Duarte and Ginger Martin
The Fellowship of the Rain, by Amarylis Douglas
Ghosts of Martha’s Vineyard, by Thomas Dresser
The Rise of Tourism on Martha’s Vineyard, by Thomas Dresser
The Moon Always Rising, by Alice C. Early
Whaling Captains of Color: America’s First Meritocracy, by Skip Finley
Genus Americanus: Hitting the Road in Search of America’s Identity
, by Loren Ghiglione, Alyssa Karas and Dan Tham
Vintage Postcards from the African World: In the Dignity of Their Work and the Joy of Their Play,
by Jessica B. Harris
Skipping Stones: The Oil War of Hypersonics, by Chris Knowles
Show Me a Sign, by Ann Clare LeZotte
No Truth Left to Tell, by Michael McAuliffe
Connecticut River Shipbuilding, by Ruth Major and Wick Griswold
Paucartambo: A Midlife Adventure from Martha’s Vineyard to Peru
, by Shirley Mayhew
1774: The Long Year of Revolution
, by Mary Beth Norton
A Promised Land, by Barack Obama
The Berth: American Themes in Poems and Images
, by Fan Ogilvie
Forgotten But Not Gone: The Silver Spoons
, by Barbara Peckham
Light Headed in the Dark Ages, by Arnie Reisman
Vinland the Good, Ancient Vineyard’s Unexplored Past, by Jonathan Scott
Someone Else’s Secret, by Julia Spiro
Rules for Moving, by Nancy Star
Child Bride, by Jennifer Smith Turner
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