It was standing room only Wednesday night at the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore in Vineyard Haven when broadcast and TV journalist Alison Stewart of New York and Oak Bluffs told the story of writing her new book, First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America’s First Black Public High School. Although she has had a 20-year career anchoring and reporting for MTV, PBS, NBC News, ABC News and CBS News, First Class is her first book.

Mark Leibovich’s new book This Town, a critical expose of the Washington power structure and New York Times best seller this summer, is as popular with the right as it is with the left. Or with anyone who believes that government is broken.

Fred Waitzkin, whose memoir Searching for Bobby Fischer inspired the movie by the same name, has been waiting his whole life to write a novel. A seasoned journalist and seasonal resident of the Vineyard, Mr. Waitzkin said that his nonfiction books had progressively begun to resemble novels. He finally decided it was now or never.

On Friday evenings during August, Vineyard Gardens in West Tisbury is transformed into a community art gallery. Works of art are arranged among the plants and paintings are hung from benches turned on end.

“The idea came from wanting to support the local artists and knowing that our flowers would complement their work and their artwork would complement our flower plant displays,” said Christine Wiley, who owns Vineyard Gardens with her husband, Chuck Wiley.

The Gay Head Gallery is nestled amid a stand of scrub oak along State Road in Aquinnah. An electric vehicle charges in the driveway and inside the cozy home/gallery artwork hangs on every wall. The art depicts scenes from around the Island — a thunderstorm rolls in over the south shore, a stiff wind blows through a green pasture. But the art, while beautiful, doesn’t just please the eye. The current show is called Changing Coastlines, and the art details the way that erosion is shaping, re-shaping and, in some cases, destroying the Martha’s Vineyard coastline.