Hamptons Authors Shine This Fall

Congratulations, Robert Caro! The South Forker and regular speaker at the annual Dan’s Papers Literary Prize for Nonfiction ceremonies won this year’s National Book Award Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. The historian, best known for his biographies of President Lyndon Johnson and Robert Moses, will receive the award at the National Book Awards ceremony and dinner in Manhattan on November 16.

Montauk’s Ralph Lauren announced that he’s working on a memoir. Simon & Schuster will publish the book next year, when his iconic fashion brand celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Sagaponack author Hillary Davis’s latest cookbook, French Desserts, has just been released by Gibbs Smith. This gorgeous tome joins Davis’s Le French Oven, French Comfort Food and Cuisine Nicoise. How does a cookbook author come to live in France and Sagaponack? Davis is also the author of A Million a Minute and she’s a popular real estate agent. Read a review of French Desserts in next week’s edition of Dan’s Papers.

October 30–31 marks the 25th anniversary of the sea rescue that inspired Sebastian Junger‘s 1997 book The Perfect Storm, and the popular film adaptation from 2000. Junger, who also wrote the bestselling War and directed the Academy Award-nominated Restrepo with late photojournalist Tim Hetherington, appeared on Springs native and The Four-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferriss‘s podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, in May of this year. It’s a great interview and well worth hearing. You can stream it here.

John Spillane, a New York Air National Guard Pararescueman from the 106th Rescue Squad in Westhampton Beach, was part of the team sent to rescue a Japanese fisherman in distress off Nova Scotia. The team was forced to ditch their helicopter over the Atlantic Ocean during the epic storm. Spillane will be speaking about the storm, his role in the rescue, and the after-effects of the incident during a Westhampton Free Library “Brunch and Learn” program on Saturday, October 22. Screenings of the films The Perfect Storm and The Finest Hours will take place at the library on Friday, October 14.