Circle of Faith,> The Story of the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting, By Sally Dagnall, Vineyard Stories, Edgartown, Ma. 2010 $24.95.
T here is no other place quite like Oak Bluffs — the color and charm, the hustle and bustle, the beaches and parks and fireworks and festivals, open and free and inviting. And to think it all started as a religious retreat.
Anyone, young or old, who has a summer friend, enjoys the company of the family dog, cherishes their time along the shore and appreciates the differences in life that the world provides will find Sarah French’s new book, Summer Friends (Vineyard Stories, $16.95), very appealing. Ms. French, of Rowayton, Conn., and Chilmark, is not only the author but illustrator as well. Her literary and artistic abilities truly appeal to both children and adults, making this a book that any adult would be happy to read to any child, a very important factor when considering the topic.
BEARING DRIFT: A Story of Tragedy, Heroism and How Thirty-Four Sailors Rescued the U.S. Coast Guard. By Peter Sloan Eident. Pirate Press. 350 pages, $29.95.
PIANIST, A Biography of Eugene Istomin. By James Gollin. Ex Libris. Illustrated. 474 pages. $23.99 paperback, $35 hardcover from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
In 1946, noted pianist Eugene Istomin summered in Menemsha. He shared a house with Rae Gabis (who later made Chilmark her year-round home and was a founder of the Thrift Shop) and her daughter, Shirley. A year later, Istomin made another summer visit, in which he and Shirley played Mendelssohn’s Allegro Brilliante together in the auditorium on the second floor of the Chilmark town hall.
Bright Waters, Shining Tides: > Reflections on a Lifetime of Fishing, paintings and essays by Kib Bramhall, Vineyard Stories, Edgartown, 2011. 96 pages. Hardcover, $29.95.
I know of three painters who are also enviably good writers, all of them Vineyard men by birth or choice.
Vineyard seasonal resident Dr. Mache Seibel, the author of a recent book aimed at providing simple, lifesaving information, believes that one of the most common reasons people die in a medical emergency is they don’t know when to call 911 or what to do, or not to do, after they call.
Breathe, Smile, Relax is the self-evident exercise that Buddhist teacher Lama Surya Das promotes in his new book, Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the Infinite Possibilities of Now. It’s a meditation that, as he puts it, “can help us collect ourselves and reconcentrate our energy and attention. Learning how to do this prevents the cupful of golden vitality poured into us at birth from being continuously drained away.”
If your idea of a homemade gift of food is a paper plate of chocolate chip cookies (recipe on the package; can’t go wrong with that), bound up in cellophane and tied with a ribbon, then the new book Gourmet Gifts: 100 Delicious Recipes for Every Occasion to Make Yourself and Wrap With Style (Harvard Common Press, $19.95), is going to make you feel like the last Neanderthal when the Cro-Magnons announced, “Look, we just do everything better.”
All around the Island this summer, at banks, at libraries, at the museum, at the Polly Hill Arboretum, at the offices of nonprofits and realtors, and at Morning Glory Farm, the pensive self-portrait of New Yorker cartoonist Jules Feiffer has been inviting us to understand the Vineyard. What the mysterious booklet asks us to understand is that the unique character, ecosystem and population of the Vineyard is under constant threat from overdevelopment, underemployment and cutbacks.
