NONFICTION

Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons, Steven Gaines, 1999. Gaines’ “social history of the Hamptons” is gossipy and snarky but full of interesting, occasionally shocking, factoids about the East End’s wealthiest and most famous denizens.

In the Hamptons: My Fifty Years With Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires, and Celebrities, Dan Rattiner, 2008. The memoir of Dan Rattiner, who has been editing the popular weekly Hamptons newspaper Dan’s Papers since 1956.

In the Spirit of the Hamptons, Kelly Killoren-Bensimon, 2002. A collection of beautiful photographs—some submitted by famous residents like Calvin Klein and Julian Schnabel—meant to celebrate (not critique) life in the Hamptons.

Weekend Utopia: Modern Living in the Hamptons, Alistair Gordon, 2001. The former East Hampton Star columnist explores the various waves of Summer People and the architecture of their various summer homes from 1890 onward.

De Kooning’s Bicycle: Artists and Writers in the Hamptons, Robert Long, 2005. Before the Hamptons became the Hamptons, it was a creative colony for some of the twentieth century’s most influential artists. Long, the East Hampton Star’s art critic, chronicles that period, in this collection of both historical and fictional essays, some reimagined from the artists’ perspectives.

Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, 1998. A 934-page tribute to one of the East End’s most legendary artists.

FICTION

Hampton Shorts: Fiction Plus from the East End, published by Hamptons Literary Publications, 1997. A collection of short stories by and interviews with writers who have lived in the Hamptons, including Judith Rossner, George Plimpton and Daniel Stern.

Lapham Rising, Roger Rosenblatt, 2006. In the TIME columnist’s first novel—a pun-filled satire on Hamptons’ materialism—protagonist Harry Munch, a Quogue recluse, is driven to action by the arrival of his new, flashy neighbors. The latter are planning to build a house with both sun and moon decks and an air conditioner designed to cool the entire property (lawn included).