You read alone and you most often write alone, but you never book festival alone.
Starting Thursday and running through Sunday, the Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival 2021 Summer Series once again invites book lovers to unite to hear the story, or stories, behind the story of how a book gets written.
“We are ready to roll,” said Suellen Lazarus, director of the festival as she worked out the finishing touches early this week. “The authors are excited. For many of them this is their first live event for their book.”
The festival has been adapted, taking safety precautions into account due to the pandemic. All events are outdoors, Ms. Lazarus said. “With tents as big as we could find.”
Books will be available for purchase at the event, but instead of author signings, the writers have pre-signed books. One book of one’s choice is included with the price of a half-day ticket, and two books for a full-day pass.
The opening night event on Thursday is sold out, featuring a discussion with Walter Isaacson, whose new book is The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, and Nobel Laureate and psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who arrives with his new book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment.
Tickets are available for Friday night’s panel, where a group of journalists will grapple with the question: Can Journalism Survive. The event is part of the Vineyard Gazette’s 175 birthday celebration and includes Jelani Cobb, Cecilia Kang and Andrew Marantz, and is moderated by Don Baer. There will be a reception after the discussion.
The first two days of the book festival will take place at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum and then it moves up-Island to the Chilmark Community Center for Saturday and Sunday. This is the first year the festival has teamed up with the museum.
“We are really excited about the partnership,” Ms. Lazarus said. “Sponsors get passes to the museum. And that view is fantastic.”
Many of the authors are coming to the Vineyard for the first time, Ms. Lazarus said. Others, like Patricia Sullivan, author of Justice Rising: Robert Kennedy’s America in Black and White, have a home here.
Heather McGee returns to the Island after a long time away. Ms. McGee spent a summer after high school scooping ice cream at Mad Martha’s on Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs. Now she arrives with her new book The Sum of Us, the result of years of research traveling the United States, interviewing hundreds of Americans trying to get to the bottom of the countries divisiveness, which, she suggests, runs contrary to what helps a country succeed.
Other writers include Mark Bittman who will discusses his new book Animal, Vegetable, Junk, Cecilia Kang, author of An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination, and Sebastian Junger. Mr. Junger has gone to sea, gone to war, and now he hits the rails in his new book, Freedom, walking for nearly a year with a few buddies along the train tracks of the East Coast, with nothing but what they could carry on their backs.
This is just a small sampling of the panels and author talks as the Martha’s Vineyard Book festival bring authors and readers together once again to talk about what they love best: books.
Ms. Lazarus suggests that everyone arrive early for events as there will be off-site parking.
For tickets and a full schedule of events, visit mvbookfestival.com.
