Dan's Papers - May 6, 2008 - Book "In The Hamptons" Available Here May 6

The memoir IN THE HAMPTONS: My Fifty Years With Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities will be available wherever books are sold on May 6. I wrote much of it on vacation in Belize a few years ago, and then I wrote the rest of it while on safari in Africa the following year. At night in our tent, by lantern light after they turned the electricity off, all you could hear were the animals hooting and snorting outside.

To say the writing of this book at that time qualified as a diversion from the job at hand during the daytime, which was looking at and photographing wildlife would be an understattement. But there it was.

I wrote about Frank Mundus, the shark fisherman who for many years strode around the docks in Montauk with a high-powered rifle. I wrote about Billy Joel designing a powerboat on a napkin in the Candy Kitchen, and then taking me out to Shelter Island to the boatyard he had hired to build it - and then a dozen more, which he sells to the public. I wrote about how Jackson Pollock died. I wrote about the Rolling Stones and how they got thrown out of the Memory Motel in Montauk.

I like to think I've had an interesting life, but since we all think that about ourselves, I think in my case it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Sure seems that way.

Everything has changed so much since I started Dan's Papers in 1960. The Hamptons, such a quiet place back then, is now a booming international resort. Dan's Papers, which was just 8 pages that first issue, was recently sold for $19 million. And I am no longer the 20-year-old kid I was when I started it. I think, I hope In the Hamptons makes for interesting reading.

Hey, did I ever tell you about the time that...

This Wednesday, May 7, there is a launch party in Manhattan at a Fifth Avenue apartment. On Friday, May 9, there is a launch party in the Hamptons at Wölffer Estate in Sagaponack. And on Saturday, I start a bookstore tours and chapter readings. The first is May 10 at BookHampton in East Hampton from 5 to 7 p.m. where I will read the chapter "Speed King" about a time in the 1970s when I got put in jail.

They did let me out for this Saturday's book reading. Though I do have to wear an ankle bracelet. I hope to see you there.