Book Markers 08.04.11

Life and Death in Amagansett

    Gary Reiswig was born into a family of fire-and-brimstone religiosity in the flatlands of the Texas Panhandle and grew up across the border in the Sooner State, where he played high school football and became a preacher. That he went on to own and run the Maidstone Arms inn and restaurant in tony East Hampton is a tale in itself. But the story he’ll be telling on Saturday at the Amagansett Library is equally compelling, touching on health care and Congressional testimony, a dread disease and the research push for a cure, life and death.

    Or, as the title of his recent book, “The Thousand Mile Stare,” puts it, the subject is “One Family’s Journey Through the Struggle and Science of Alzheimer’s.” The latest in the library’s Authors After Hours series, the reading starts at 6 p.m. Mr. Reiswig, a contributor of reviews and essays to The Star who lives in Springs, will be available to chat afterward.

Hard-Boiled Hamill

    Newsprint is dead. Long live newsprint!

    Newspapers may be foundering in the Internet age, to say nothing of the death by a thousand hacks of News of the World across the pond, but that doesn’t mean the office chaos and infighting, drinking and swearing among ink-stained wretches aren’t the stuff of good novels. A top practitioner of such, Pete Hamill, will step up to the podium amid the greenery behind the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton tomorrow at 5 p.m. to read from his latest, “Tabloid City.”

    He knows of what he speaks. The veteran newsman has seemingly held every coveted reporter’s billet in the Big Apple: The Post, Daily News, New York Newsday, Village Voice. And he headed up those first two for a time.

    A no-holds-barred question-and-answer session will follow the reading, and Mr. Hamill will sign copies, too. Wine and hors d’oeuvres at the table under the big Norway maple are a regular feature of Fridays at Five, entrance to which costs $15. Next week brings Gail Levin and “Lee Krasner: A Biography.”