Arts & Entertainment
Talking Ospreys
Rob Bierregaard began researching osprey on Martha’s Vineyard in 1969. Since then, he has been investigating the habits and migrations of these birds on Martha’s Vineyard and beyond. He will share his work, knowledge and passion for ospreys at a free lecture at the Oak Bluffs Library tonight, July 29, at 6:30 p.m.
For details on this lecture, call Felix Neck sanctuary at 508-627-4850. For more on Mr. Bierregaard’s work, see online bioweb.uncc.edu/bierregaard/.
Edgartown Jewels
CB Stark Jewelers will be having a John Hardy Trunk show in Edgartown all day on Saturday, August 2, featuring one-of-a-kind designs along with a large selection of classic styles, at the shop at 27 North Water street. For details, call 508-627-1260.
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.
Suffrage Speech
Geraldine Brooks, Carol Gilligan, Marcia Randol and Rose Styron on Thursday will read passages from Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Solitude of Self, followed by a discussion of the speech and its author’s contributions to American democracy.
The free event is billed as A Celebration of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Solitude of Self. It takes place on July 31, from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library.
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.
PALACE COUNCIL By Stephen L. Carter. Knopf, New York, N.Y. July 2008. 528 pages. $26.95 hardcover.
There are some thrillers — The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon come to mind — where the plot is never going to make much sense, but for the reader to bog down on this point is to miss a jolly good ride. Stephen L. Carter’s new novel, Palace Council, is just the sort of book that keeps you turning pages — all 500-plus of them — until the clock blinks 3:28 a.m. in digital pixels and you force yourself to turn out the light.
