Couric Kicks It Off
Remember Fridays at Five? On the back lawn of the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton, under the spreading leaves of the big tree, folding chairs bright white in the sun, nine-ounce plastic tumblers of chardonnay, and an author at a lectern, promoting a book.
You could call it the granddaddy of the Hamptons reading series, and after 38 seasons it's back for another, starting tomorrow at the advertised 5 with the TV journalist Katie Couric and her memoir of her life and the biz, "Going There."
Now, if a 2021 release seems less than new, freshness is added by the presence of an interlocutor, Ken Auletta, media critic for The New Yorker.
Tickets cost $25 at the gate, or $125 for all six author appearances, and "free parking passes courtesy of the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church," just a short jaunt west and across Main Street, "are available at the library while supplies last," a release said.
About those five other authors, they are, in order starting on Friday, July 14, Chris Pavone and his latest thriller, "Two Nights in Lisbon," Lewis M. Simons and "To Tell the Truth: My Life as a Foreign Correspondent," Susan Isaacs and her new mystery, "Bad, Bad Seymour Brown," The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik and "The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery," and, wrapping it up on Aug. 11, Jennifer Breheny Wallace and her forthcoming "Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic — and What We Can Do About It." She'll discuss it with the queen of the foodies, Ina Garten.
Sunny in the Baldwin Room
And then there are those who seem like they'd be good candidates for Fridays at Five but are reading elsewhere, like in the East Hampton Library's Baldwin Lecture Room, where tonight at 6 you'll find Sunny Hostin, of note as a television journalist covering legal matters, reading from "Summer on Sag Harbor," her novel following up on 2021's "Summer on the Bluffs." This one involves a fight to preserve the Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, and Ninevah neighborhoods, and Ms. Hostin will talk it over with Harriette Cole, an author and advice columnist.
Copies will be available for buying and signing, thanks be to BookHampton. Registration is on Eventbrite and through the library's website.
And speaking of the library, before you know it it'll be mid-August, and that's when, on the 12th, the mega-fund-raiser Authors Night hits Herrick Park downtown. Tickets start at $150, or $400 for dinners with authors at private residences. Everything you could possibly need to know is at authorsnight.org.