Saving the sea from overfishing begins with paying attention to the forage fish. Tomorrow afternoon at 5:30, the author of an important environmental story will speak at the Chilmark Public Library as part of an ongoing series on fisheries and fishermen.

Author Bruce Franklin will give a free talk on the value of menhaden in America. Last year his book The Most Important Fish in the Sea was published and received high praise along the waterfront and amid fisheries managers along the coast.

In her one woman show The Big Boot, writer Jenny Allen takes a candid look at the cancer diagnosis that turned her life upside down and sent her on a soul-searching journey through complex internal landscapes. Rather than wallow in maudlin bathos, the play combines wit, humor and insight to frame the illness in a humane context audiences can relate to.

Why do some washashores to the Island stay ashore while others drift away?

The question had settled in Island author Elaine Pace’s mind for a couple of years. She spent a year talking with people who stayed and the result is Island Home, the stories of 14 pilgrims who visited, then chose to live on the Vineyard.

Subtitled Why People Come to Martha’s Vineyard and Why They Stay, the self-published book hits Island bookstores today. The book joins Island, a Memoir, Ms. Pace’s first book, published in 2005.

On Tuesday, July 29, at 5 p.m. Prof. Renée Bergland as its next speaker in the Martha’s Vineyard Museum’s summer lecture series.

Dr. Bergland will speak on her book, Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science, a cultural biography of the 19th-century Nantucket astronomer. Maria Mitchell, a Nantucket native, apprenticed with her father, an amateur astronomer. For years she swept the Nantucket night with the telescope in her rooftop observatory. In 1847, Mitchell discovered a comet and was catapulted to international fame.

Author Ernie Weiss talks about his book Out of Vienna: Eight Years of Flight from the Nazis on Thursday, August 28, from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library. Admission is free.

Ernie Weiss is the son of a Dachau concentration camp survivor. He was born in Vienna in 1931. When Hitler invaded Austria in 1938 Ernie and his family fled. After eight years on the run, taking them throughout Europe to Cuba, they obtained visas and were admitted into the United States.

Vineyard-born author A.F. Cook (known to many Islanders as the artist Anne Cook) recently published her first book, Democrats in the Red Zone: an Independent Voter’s Take on the Game of Political Perception. The book looks at the Democratic Party’s strategic failures through the lens of a football fan — specifically, a longtime New England Patriots fan.

Bass Talks Side Effects

Pulitzer Prize nominee Alison Bass will discuss her book Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial, today, August 5, at 5 p.m. at the West Tisbury Free Public Library.

Side Effects is based on a true story of a landmark case that exposed greed, corruption and negligence in the pharmaceutical industry.

Striper Wars author Dick Russell talks about efforts to save a troubled fishery, on Wednesday, August 27, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library.

When populations of striped bass began plummeting in the early 1980s, author and fisherman Dick Russell was there to lead an Atlantic coast conservation campaign that resulted in one of the most remarkable wildlife comebacks in the history of fisheries.

Even if you don’t call your brother by the name of a different vegetable every day (Broccoli, Turnip, or, whenever he’s being nice, Pea Pod), many readers know what the quirky, crazy-lovable third grader Clementine means when she says, “Spectacularful ideas are always sproinging up in my brain.”

Bridge to Baseball

Walk-offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs: Baseball’s Grand (and-not-so-grand) Finales is the title of former Sports Illustrated baseball writer Jim Kaplan’s latest book — and an evening talk he’s giving Wednesday, August 6, at 7 p.m. at the West Tisbury Library.

Mr. Kaplan will chat about the connection between baseball and bridge, which he describes as being “joined at the hip.” The program will include a trivia quiz and the winner will receive a free book.