M-80 and Jet East, which are only about a mile apart on North Sea Road. But while Jet East hosted the debut party for fashion designer Cynthia Rowley's new boutique in East Hampton, M-80 snared former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Ashley Richardson as its new marketing director. You can also read about how Hollywood power couple Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft were turned away from Gurney's Inn in Montauk, which was booked solid the week before Memorial Day last year, and see photographs of soap opera diva Susan Lucci, who lives in Quogue, and other celebrities at the opening of the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. That's what it cost to attend a Saturday-night bash Martha Stewart threw a while back to benefit the East Hampton Historical Society. Such events are regularly advertised in the tabloids, and in local newspapers such as the Independent, East Hampton Star, and Sag Harbor Express.
People here do a lot of reading, and each town boasts a public library and several fine bookstores.
Sag Harbor, mentioned in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, is home to the crowded, comfortable Canio's, where I have often lost myself for hours amid the new, used and antiquarian volumes. Sometimes local writers stop in to say hello to proprietor Canio Pavone or to read aloud from their works. For me, there's no finer pleasure than a good book accompanied by a smooth cup of coffee in a shady cafe, or the salty breeze off the ocean on a sunny beach. And after you've gawked at the beautiful people similarly engaged, you just might decide that they are onto something after all. If You Go Getting there.