Book Markers 05.03.12

“Long Island Noir”

    Forget the sunshine and beaches. You don’t have to sit in traffic or schlep through a dispiriting strip mall to know of Long Island’s dark side. And now its depths are plumbed in a more literary way in an anthology, “Long Island Noir,” edited by Kaylie Jones and out this week from Akashic Books.

    Part of a series of dozens of such collections by that publisher, from the fresh take (“Indian Country Noir”) to the familiar (“Los Angeles Noir”), this edition doubles down on the geographical angle with a distinct setting for each story: Ms. Jones, who lived in Sagaponack for many years, on dirty dealings in a “Home Invasion” in Wainscott, for example, or Jane Ciabattari’s “Contents of House,” which takes place in her own Sag Harbor. There’s even a six-page graphical tale set in Southampton by Jules Feiffer.

    All three of the above named will read from the collection at Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor on Saturday at 5 p.m., joined by other contributors — Sheila Kohler, Charles Salzberg, and JZ Holden.

Cappy Makes Good

    And speaking of that whaling village, a book about one of its better-known citizens, “Cappy: The Art and Life of C. Hjalmar Amundsen” by Terry Wallace of the Wallace Gallery in East Hampton, has won a 2012 Independent Publisher Regional Book Award, or Ippy. The awards highlight titles of notable quality and regional significance from across North America, Australia, and New Zealand.

    The book, published by M.T. Fine Arts and the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum, where there was a show of Amundsen’s paintings last year, tied for the top nonfiction spot in the Northeast with “Dear Friend Amelia: The Civil War Letters of Private John Tidd.” Amundsen died in 2001.

Goethe Medal

    Last week the writer Silvia Tennenbaum of Springs was awarded the German province of Hesse’s Goethe Medal for her work. She is the author of the novels “Rachel, the Rabbi’s Wife” and “Yesterday’s Streets.”

    “Yesterday’s Streets” is a story of two Jewish families in Frankfurt in the first half of the 20th century. It was recently translated into German, and Ms. Tennenbaum is on a book tour in that country, where she was born. She immigrated to America as a child in the 1930s.

Of Consequence

    Two of the South Fork’s leading literary figures were tapped to speak yesterday in Manhattan at sold-out events. Robert A. Caro, who has a house in East Hampton, was scheduled for a conversation with Rachel Syme at the 92nd Street Y about his career and his newest book about Lyndon Johnson, “The Passage of Power,” just released by Knopf and hailed as a major event in American letters. Ms. Syme is a contributor to NPR and Time magazine.

    E.L. Doctorow of Sag Harbor was on a “Literary Voices” panel with Margaret Atwood and Martin Amis at the TimesCenter on West 41st Street.