Book Markers: 05.08.14

30 Years of Fridays at Five

    Always a highlight of the summer season for those who enjoy quaffing chardonnay from plastic tumblers while listening to a top author read, the Fridays at Five series at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton is now ready to mark its 30th year.

    It will do so Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at the library with a gathering of heavyweight South Fork writers: Paul Goldberger of The New Yorker, Bill Henderson of the Pushcart Press and Prize, Linda Bird Francke, whose books include “On the Road With Francis of Assisi,” and Gail Sheehy, the author of “Passages.” Forming a panel moderated by Steven Gaines, they’ll discuss what the future holds for the publishing industry as well as how the Fridays at Five series has been a boon to the Bridgehampton and Sagaponack area.

    Tickets to attend cost $20 and are available at the library. A reception with wine and hors d’oeuvres will follow.

Shirley Jackson Reconsidered

    Here’s a treat for fans of the macabre: One of the genre’s masters, Shirley Jackson, will get a bit of the lit-crit treatment, courtesy of Susan Scarf Merrell, who teaches in the creative writing program at Stony Brook Southampton and is the fiction editor of the college’s journal, The Southampton Review.

    She is also, it so happens, the author of a book due out next month from Blue Rider Press, “Shirley: A Novel,” billed as a psychological thriller involving a young couple and their year with the writer in Bennington, Vt., in the early 1960s. Ms. Merrell will talk about Jackson’s influence on her own work.

    Called “Beyond ‘The Lottery,’ ” the talk will start at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor. Reference staff members have suggested you give one of them a heads-up if you plan on attending.

    And speaking of lotteries, straws or something similar will be drawn and two attendees will walk away with hardbound copies of Ms. Merrell’s new book.