By Erica Schwiegershausen 8/15/12 4:30pm

Shindigger

Dick Cavett. (Matthew Peyton/Getty)

Summer Reading: The East Hampton Library’s Authors Night

The Observer put down our book last Saturday and ventured out to Gardiner Farm for the eighth annual Authors Night at the East Hampton Library. By the time we arrived, a plethora of library patrons—evidently undeterred by the cloudy skies—swarmed the tent in hopes of chatting up their favorite writers.

Hosted by library benefactors Alec Baldwin and Barbara Goldsmith, the reception boasted a guest list of more than 100 authors—everyone from the former Real Housewife of New York Kelly Killoren Bensimon, author of the “supermodel diet” book I Can Make You Hot, to the esteemed Lyndon Johnson biographer Robert Caro. Literary aficionados of all breeds meandered between tables with plastic cups of wine, accumulating stacks of personally inscribed hardcovers.

Sitting beside a large pile of copies of his second autobiography, Dick Cavett appeared to be thoroughly enjoying the attention of a throng of admirers and photographers. As we approached, he spontaneously grabbed both sides of our head and pulled us in for a dramatic kiss on the cheek. “I just wanted to give the photographer a thrill,” he whispered, a gleam in his eye. Read More

By Emily Witt 11/01/11 12:47pm

Tomes

Johnson.

Robert Caro's Fourth Volume of LBJ Bio Coming in May

Having worked on his exhaustive biography of Lyndon B. Johnson for almost three decades, Robert A. Caro has delivered the manuscript for the fourth installment, leaving only one more volume before the magnum opus is complete. The Passage of Power will be published by Knopf in May, continuing the story begun in The Path to Power (1982), Means of Ascent (1990) and Master of the Senate (2002). Mr. Caro has already won the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award and the books have collectively sold more than 1 million copies. Read More

By Steve Kornacki 5/15/09 2:54am

Obama Risks Turning From J.F.K. Into L.B.J.

Speaking as the 100th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s birth approached last summer, biographer Robert Caro spoke of how Johnson’s presidency managed to be both triumphant and disastrous at the same time.

“You listen to the [people] who were concerned with what Lyndon Johnson did on the domestic side, and you say, ‘There Read More

By Max Abelson 11/04/08 11:46pm

Ted Sorensen Hosts Robert Caro, Other Luminaries Tonight at 15 CPW

Tonight, on a lower floor of the haute new mega-condo Fifteen Central Park West, in a three-bedroom, 3,444-square-foot apartment that deific Ted Sorensen and his wife Gillian bought last November for $10.75 million, people who are smarter than just about everyone currently alive in New York City will be gathering to privately celebrate tonight’s election. Read More

By Gillian Reagan 4/17/08 7:14pm

Robert Caro, Calvin Trillin Voted Into Arts Academy

The prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters has announced eight new inductees, including historian Robert Caro, New Yorker humorist Calvin Trillin and poet Paul Muldoon. Founded in 1898, the academy is "an honor society of 250 architects, composers, artists, and writers," according to its web site, with new members voted in as "vacancies occur." Read More