The East Hampton Library identifies Authors Night as the premier literary event of the Hamptons, and that’s not an overstatement. Authors Committee chair Barbara Goldsmith and founding chairman Alec Baldwin, pulled together an A-list of writers to sign books in a tent on the library grounds on Saturday, August 14th and to then attend a series of fundraising dinners in private homes around East Hampton. The results are impressive: 155 authors participated and $200,000 was raised for the library.
Hamptons Magazine hosted a dinner for 40 guests at the home of—well, at my house. It’s really a pretty good place for this kind of event since I live with about fifteen thousand books and two big black mutts. We started with cocktails on the porch and lawn, and then sat down at tables on the grass under the black starry sky for dinner. Andrea Correale of Elegant Affairs arranged the perfect summer menu. As the evening got chiller we moved into the library for coffee and passed desserts, giving our authors a chance to shine in their own element, among books. Every guest seemed to talk to all four authors and the authors to one another as well.
One of our featured writers, Alexandra Lebenthal is the author of The Recessionistas (Grand Central Publishing, August 2010) a novel about New York society dealing with the financial meltdown. It’s an incisive and witty book by a financial and social insider, and sure to create a lot of buzz. When I asked Lebenthal for her impressions of the evening, she told me, “It was wonderful to spend an evening in a home that is clearly that of a book lover. Meeting the other authors was terrific and I already have my own summer reading list – to read theirs.”
Tad Friend, the New Yorker staff writer, who wrote so perceptively of growing up in the Georgica Association in his memoir, Cheerful Money: Me, My Family and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor (Little, Brown and Company 2009), said “Our table discussed Obama (two people high-fiving in agreement that he was the worst president ever; others shaking their heads in amazement), the modern blended family, and the difference between groins and jetties. So it was just like being at home, only with better wine.”
Jill Martin, author of Fashion for Dummies (Wiley Publishing 2010), was so enthusiastic about the event and my house that I almost feel obligated to ask her to move in. “Author’s night was a huge success and an honor to be a part of. It gave Hamptonites a chance to get together for a good cause and the dinner at Michael Braverman’s was the perfect punctuation to the night. Great books, interesting people, a beautiful home and a magnificent library. What more can you ask for!”
Karen Bergreen makes murder very funny. No surprise since she is a comedian and now a novelist with the debut of Following Polly (St. Martin’s Press 2010). She’s also funny in her comment on the evening: “I think you become a writer partly out of some need to be alone in a room for months on end; then you attend an event like this one, and you discover that being surrounded by fascinating people in a movie set environment is way more fun. When my book is translated into Ancient Greek, I hope it will be showcased in Mr. Braverman’s dramatic library.”
I’m convinced we had the four best authors and the most fun.