Perspective is under the spotlight at this year’s Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival.  

Numerous authors, journalists and historians will speak about their respective books at the festival which takes place at the Chilmark Community Center from August 1 to 3. The theme of the weekend is The Power of Perspective, and topics include democracy, history, personal identity and cultural shifts, all relating to current issues. 

Framing the weekend around this theme felt natural this year, said festival founder Suellen Lazarus.  

“This year, we were very cognizant of the fact of the importance of understanding.” she said. “Each week there was a new issue that had people’s attention. There’s so many issues right now that are complicated, and people are trying to understand how we got to this moment, and what’s happening in the country and in the world.” 

The authors include well-known Vineyarders, frequent visitors and newcomers, who will all take part in readings, Q&A’s and panel discussions over the course of three days. The opening event on August 1 features Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, and Atlantic staff writer Ashley Parker, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. 

Geraldine Brooks, John Abrams, Jessica Harris, Keith McNally and Danzy Senna will all be representing the Vineyard. Other notables include Wally Lamb, Chris Hayes, Graydon Carter, Curtis Sittenfeld, Evan Osnos and Safiya Sinclair.  

Kara Swisher also returns to the festival, with her Burn Book, A Tech Love Story, published in March.  

Moderators and special guests include Michele Norris, Dawn Davis, Joan Nathan and Eric Kim. 

When creating the lineup for the biennial celebration of literature, Ms. Lazarus said she tries to place herself in the mind of the reader, anticipating answers to questions that people may want answered. 

“What are people thinking about? What are people worrying about? What’s happening in the world that we’d like to know more about?” she said. “When you see a book, why do you want to read it? Because there’s something that resonates with you, with the time, with issues that you’re thinking about, a subject that you care about or want to know more about.” 

Giving people perspective with historical context is a main goal of the festival, according to Ms. Lazarus. 

One of those books, Access, written by Rebecca Grant, is about reproductive rights.  

“This is really an historical perspective about how women have always had to fight for reproductive rights, so that was important to us as a topic that we felt that people would be interested in learning about,” Mz. Lazarus said. 

Ms. Lazarus is excited to see how each author will contribute to important conversations touching on different aspects of modern-day society. 

“It’s a fantastic breadth of information and skill and knowledge about our world,” she said. “We want it to be a book festival that helps us understand our times. Then when people understand it, they can put it in a historical context [that is] useful to people.” 

For more information about the schedule and lineup, visit mvbookfestival.com.