Hard-Boiled Jake Cleans Up the Vineyard
Joel Greenberg

There are all manner of real-world characters who escape to Martha’s Vineyard — to start a new life, to get away from their old one or simply to enjoy the Island. Some are accomplished lawyers, some are alcoholics, some are philanderers, some failed husbands. Jake Dellahunt, Vineyard Lawyer, with an office on the Cape, happens to be all of those.

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Novel Follows Star Children On Journey of Acceptance
Olivia Hull

How does one end up writing a book about a star child? For that matter, what is a star child?

Author Kay Goldstein was wondering the same thing a few years ago when she started writing the first pages of her newly released novel, Star Child, a process which caused her to delve into the depths of human experience.

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Burning Earth Makes Searing Tale
Liz Durkee

THE DAY THE EARTH CAVED IN: An American Mining Tragedy. By Joan Quigley. Random House. 2007. Hardcover. 223 pages.

Before he began sinking into the ground, 12-year-old Todd Domboski noticed a wisp of smoke floating from the ground “like a smoldering match buried under damp leaves.”

In Centralia, Pennsylvania, where an abandoned coal mine had been burning beneath the town for 19 years, the book explains, tiny fissures often punched through the topsoil, trailing bands of sulfurous steam.

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Wake Up and Read: Reggae Scrapbook
Jim Hickey

REGGAE SCRAPBOOK. By Roger Steffens and Peter Simon. Insight Editions. San Rafael, Calif.. 2007. 154 pages. $45 hardcover with DVD.

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What Ratty Said to Mole Still Counts: Author Loves Messing Around in Boats
Mark Alan Lovewell

The Journals of Constant Waterman, Paddling, Poling, and Sailing for the Love of It. By Matthew Goldman, Breakaway Books, Halcottsville, N.Y. 2007, page 336. $14.

Matthew Goldman has sailed into Vineyard waters with his book The Journals of Constant Waterman. Boat enthusiasts and especially wanna-be boat enthusiasts will enjoy the short stories assembled between the cover. His trade is boat repair and maintenance and a lot of other crafts. He lives in Stonington.

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Oil Trade: Book Renews Hanukkah Story
By NATHANIEL HORWITZ

LETTER ON THE WIND: A Chanukah Tale. By Sarah Marwil Lamstein. Illustrated by Neil Waldman. Boyds Mills Press, Honesdale, Pa. 2007. 32 pages. $16.95 hardcover.

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Here and Blair: New Political Thriller Imagines Bad Brits Holed Up on Island
Sam Bungey

The disclaimer found at the front of political novels is generally trivial boilerplate. It implies that the novelist, or his publisher at least, is a bit chicken. Coy allusions to real people and events may be made but vaguely and behind the blast wall of imagination.

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Tale Told With Wit and Daggers, Just Like the Lives of the Wives
Liz Durkee

GOOD LITTLE WIVES. By Abby Drake. HarperCollins. August 2007. 304 pages. $13.95 softcover.

Good Little Wives is a good little chick-lit read. I read it in a day. Granted, there were no distractions because it was one of those rare I-don’t-feel-very-good-I-think-I’ll-stay-in-bed-all-day days. And Good Little Wives, by Abby Drake, was just what I needed.

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Emily Post Blossoms in Biography
Holly Nadler

EMILY POST: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners. By Laura Claridge. Random House, New York, N.Y. October 2008. 544 pages. $30 hardcover.

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Real-Life Hero Behind Kids’ Story Was Woman Ahead of Her Time

The Honey Boat,> by Polly Burroughs. Illustrated by Garrett Price. Published 1968 and 2008. Schiffer Publishing Ltd., Atglen, PA, 44 pages. $14.99.

For those who remember traveling the streets of Edgartown years ago, the term honey wagon was a euphemism for the septic system pump-out trucks that traveled the streets during the height of summer. It was pretty easy to understand why they got such a witty name. The vehicles attracted so many flies that from a distance they could look like beehives.

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