To the New Owners: A Martha’s Vineyard Memoir Audiobook (Free)

In the 1970s, Madeleine Blais’s in-laws purchased a holiday house on Martha’s Vineyard for the exorbitant sum of $80,000. 2.2 miles down a poorly marked, one street dirt road, the home was better termed a shack-it had zero electricity, no modern domestic plumbing, the roof leaked, and mice had invaded the wall space. It was perfect.

Sitting down on Tisbury Great Pond-well-stocked with oysters and crab for foraged dinners-the home faced the ocean and the sky, and though it had been eventually replaced by a sturdier structure, the ethos remained the same: no heat, no TV, no telephone. Instead, there were countless hours at the beach, meals prepared and savored with friends, nights talking under the stars, until finally, the home was sold in 2014.

To the brand new Owners is Madeleine Blais’s charming, evocative memoir of the house, and of the Vineyard itself-from the annals from the island and its famous visitors to the ferry, the pie shops, the quirky charms and customs, and the abundant natural beauty. But more than that, this is an elegy for a special place.