Book Markers 06.30.11

It Begins With the Aldas

    Tomorrow Bridgehampton’s most famous residents, Arlene and Alan Alda, will open this year’s iteration of the hamlet’s venerable series of readings, Fridays at Five, at the Hampton Library. (Most generous residents, too, many would say, making sizable donations as they have to the Children’s Museum of the East End and to the library itself, where a room is named after them.)

    Ms. Alda will read her new children’s book, “Lulu’s Piano Lesson.” Her titles include “Here a Face, There a Face,” full of photos of charming anthropomorphism, from Tunda Books. Her husband will read essays from his 2007 collection, “Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself.” The couple will answer questions and sign copies, too.

    The cost is $15. Drinks will be available on the library’s back lawn, as ever, under that big old Norway maple.

    The series will continue on Friday, July 8, with Tom Clavin and Bob Drury’s new collaboration about the Vietnam War, “Last Men Out.” The authors to follow are David Reynolds (“Mightier Than the Sword”), Adam Haslett (“Union Atlantic”), and Colson Whitehead (“Sag Harbor”). August brings Pete Hamill with “Tabloid City” on the 5th, Gail Levin and “Lee Krasner: A Biography” on the 12th, and on the 19th Roger Rosenblatt with “Unless It Moves the Human Heart.”

Writing Your Life

    Popular and peripatetic, Eileen Obser, that veteran writing instructor, will next set up (work) shop at the Southampton Cultural Center. On the syllabus? “Writing about your life.” As a release reminds us, “Writing your life stories is a gift to yourself, your loved ones, and to history.”

    The weekly classes start on Tuesday, from 1 to 3 p.m., and will run through July 26. The cost is $100. Registration is by phone at 287-4377 or by e-mail at [email protected].

    Ms. Obser, whose own work has been published in this and other newspapers and in various journals, has been leading such workshops for more than 17 years. She lives in East Hampton.