Book reviews

kay goldstein

Novel Follows Star Children On Journey of Acceptance

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.

A J Cushner

Hard-Boiled Jake Cleans Up the Vineyard

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.

steven raichlen island apart

Book Review: Barbecue Maestro Cooks Up New Dish, Chappy Love Story

In an afterward to Steven Raichlen’s love story that takes place on our own beloved little island off the big Island, locally known as Chappy, the author frets, in a witty way, that he might have presented the small, water-enveloped moraine as too much of a Shangri-la: What if too many readers are persuaded to move there, and Chappaquiddickers suddenly lose their much-cherished peace and quiet?

Tom Dresser

New Book Rekindles Lore of 1884 Shipwreck off Aquinnah

It is 128 years since the worst maritime disaster in these waters, yet the story of the sinking of the City of Columbus, one half mile off Aquinnah, gains new life by the release of a book by Thomas Dresser.

Shipwrecks and the events that surround them never seem far from the public eye. Last month, there was observance of the centennial of the sinking of the Titanic. And in January, there was the sinking of the 952-foot cruise ship Costa Concordia, a story that is still unfolding.

Nicole Galland stone pond

Fleshing Out the Softer Side of Iago

No contest, Iago, the evil genius of William Shakespeare’s Othello, is the most brutal villain in any of the bard’s productions. The play was first presented in 1604 during what literary historians have deemed Shakespeare’s period of despair, when the struggle for good and evil in the human soul preoccupied him.

But what made Iago so ruthless yet so ostensibly above-reproach that he could win a loving and well-bred wife like Emilia and the trust and promotion of a great general such as Othello?

Spare the Humor, Spoil the Father

Leave it to Boomer; A Look at Life, Love and Parenthood by the Very Model of the Modern Middle-Age Man, by Jerry Zezima, iUniverse, Inc., New York, Bloomington, 2010, 154 pages (paperback, $15.95)

Jerry Zezima is a funny guy. You may have read some of his columns in the Vineyard Gazette over the years. In his first book, Leave it to Boomer, he traces his life as a middle-age father and husband. When someone tells his wife and daughter that Jerry is “very witty,” they both respond: “We just ignore him.”

Robert Taylor and Tuskegee Ellen Weiss

Book Profiles Post Civil War Era Architect

Robert Taylor (1868-1942) graduated from M.I.T. in 1892 with a professional architecture degree, becoming the first fully accredited black architect in America.

His father, Henry Taylor, a freed slave from Wilmington, North Carolina, had turned his expertise with naval supplies into a thriving business that led to his reputation during the era immediately following the Civil War as “the wealthiest black landowner in the state.” His success enabled him to send all five of his children, girls and boys, to college.

Carly Simon Taylor family

Carly Simon Biography, Talent and Determination

Carly Simon, especially for those who live on or visit Martha’s Vineyard, is a bold-faced name. In fact, she has been famous for so long it is as if she were born famous; biding her time in the womb, say, by humming the first bars of Anticipation. Such is the price of fame, this distorted view by those on the outside looking in. We see only the finished product, the glamorous stage presence, so natural, again as if she had rocked her own delivery room with a chorus of You’re So Vain. But this is a false picture, one that does not include the shy stutterer who achieved her success the old-fashioned way, with a lot of very hard work.

scalloping boat sail

Mighty Morsels for Thought and Taste

Scallops:> A New England Coastal Cookbook, by Elaine Tammi and Karin A. Tammi, Pelican Publishing Co., Gretna, Louisiana, 350 pages, color photographs and illustrations, $39.95.

With fresh bay scallops being landed at Vineyard docks it is time to think about favorite recipes. Earlier this year Pelican Publishing came out with a cookbook and compendium of stories about both the coastal bay scallop and the deep sea scallop. The Vineyard is in the book, though not named often enough.

scalloping boat sail

Mighty Morsels for Thought and Taste

Scallops:> A New England Coastal Cookbook, by Elaine Tammi and Karin A. Tammi, Pelican Publishing Co., Gretna, Louisiana, 350 pages, color photographs and illustrations, $39.95.

With fresh bay scallops being landed at Vineyard docks it is time to think about favorite recipes. Earlier this year Pelican Publishing came out with a cookbook and compendium of stories about both the coastal bay scallop and the deep sea scallop. The Vineyard is in the book, though not named often enough.

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