Martha's Vineyard Outdoors

Book excerpt: Martha's Vineyard is a well known summer vacation spot. In this collection of columns, former Martha's Vineyard Times editor Nelson Sigelman describes an island preoccupation, less notorious than tourism but more obsessive, rooted in fishing, hunting and waterfowling traditions that shaped the island's character well before a mechanical shark named Bruce and presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama attracted slavish media attention to a 100-square mile speck off the coast of Massachusetts. Martha's Vineyard Outdoors casts a wide net. "The pleasures of Nelson Sigelman's distinctive voice held this non-fishing, non-hunting, feminist, tree-hugging pinko spellbound from the first column to the very last," said Island resident and Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks. The setting is Martha's Vineyard but the stories are rooted in the humor and love of the outdoors found in small communities across the country.