2025 Nantucket Book Festival Preview

The 2025 Nantucket Book Festival runs this weekend from June 12th to 15th, featuring a wide variety of well-known and critically acclaimed authors. The Book Festival enters its 14th year as one of the summer’s premier events, headlined this year by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Bob Woodward.

“We're talking about someone who has reported on some of the biggest world news that has ever happened,” Nantucket Book Festival president Tim Ehrenberg said. “It's very timely just to get his take on everything happening in the world.”

Woodward, most well-known for his coverage of the Watergate scandal, will speak with Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry at the Methodist Church at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday. He is also participating in the festival’s opening ceremony on Friday at 6:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church with fellow authors Patrick Radden Keefe, Loretta J. Ross, and Lisa Genova.

Other headliners include Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and National Book Award winner for nonfiction Imani Perry; #1 New York Times best-selling author Carl Hiaasen, whose novel “Bad Monkey” was adapted into a series on Apple TV starring Vince Vaughn; Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks, author of “Memorial Days,” a memoir of marriage and loss; and critically acclaimed poet and best-selling author Ocean Vuong. From top to bottom, the list of visiting authors is filled with names that could headline an event in their own right.

“At any moment we could pick six and they could be the headliners because they're all headliners in their own way,” Ehrenberg said. “This is a jam-packed schedule, probably more jam-packed than any other year.”

The full schedule, along with a complete list of participating authors, is available on the Nantucket Book Festival website.

With the exception of Friday’s author dinner, every Book Festival event is free and open to the public, a rarity in Nantucket’s busy festival scene that allows island residents to walk in off the street and listen to any of the authors brought in by the festival. The festival’s free admission policy is possible because of sponsorships and donations, and is seen as a cornerstone of the program.

“Our co-founders, Mary Haft, Wendy Hudson, and Meghan Blair-Valero, that was part of their initial vision, which I just thought was so beautiful,” Ehrenberg said. “It's so unique for Nantucket. We are looked at as such an exclusive island...we continue to make [the Book Festival] only inclusive. That is our main, main goal. That and connection.”

In addition to the authors brought in from across the country, the Book Festival also features a number of local authors from the Nantucket area. From 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, the Book Festival hosts a special local authors event at the Nantucket Atheneum to spotlight these authors and bring attention to the island’s vibrant literary community.

The Book Festival is notable for its broad focus, spanning a wide range of genres and featuring authors with a diverse array of styles.

“There is something for everybody and not just one type of reader,” Ehrenberg said. “Go to something where you've never heard of the author and you've never read the book, and you will leave maybe having found your new favorite book or your next favorite author.”

The Nantucket Book Festival is run by the Nantucket Book Foundation, which also organizes events throughout the year, many focused on nurturing young readers, including a program that brings acclaimed authors to local public schools to meet with students and talk about their work.

A tight-knit team keeps the Book Festival running year after year, including Ehrenberg, the co-founders, a number of directors, and the festival’s only full-time employee, Kaley Kokomoor. Ehrenberg believes that their work has the power to bring people together and foster community on the island.

“I think you could really walk away changed,” he said. “In that room, you could look around, and there's just this look of lightness. Your shoulders are back a little bit, you're crying, you're laughing, you're looking at each other with smiles, and it's just really, really great to see.”