Rating: 
Summary: Turning the Hamptons into something ordinary.
Review: The Hamptons are just like most of the pristine land in this country. Everyday you see property gobbled up and suburbanized. The new owners never seem to have a clue why they liked it in the first place. All they want to do is make it the same as home. This book shows you how futile it is to try and stop it. If you ever wondered who these too rich, bad taste mongrels are, you'll love this book. I certainly did
Rating: 
Summary: A uniquely American Aristocracy
Review: The Hamptons, Beverly Hills, Palm Beach, Vero Beach, Buckhead. If you've been to these places you've seen it--the distinctly American phenomenon of super-wealth attempting to forestall spiritual death with ostentatious materialism. That's what this book is about. Though America's super-wealthy frequently have European aristocratic pretenses, money alone does not nobility make. The author makes this point to us through a sometimes not-so-careful critique of specific super-wealthy Hamptonites. He could have just as easily written about one of these other enclaves of flashy, superficial elegance.
Rating:
Summary: A uniquely American Aristocracy
Review: The Hamptons, Beverly Hills, Palm Beach, Vero Beach, Buckhead. If you've been to these places you've seen it--the distinctly American phenomenon of super-wealth attempting to forestall spiritual death with ostentatious materialism. That's what this book is about. Though America's super-wealthy frequently have European aristocratic pretenses, money alone does not nobility make. The author makes this point to us through a sometimes not-so-careful critique of specific super-wealthy Hamptonites. He could have just as easily written about one of these other enclaves of flashy, superficial elegance.
Rating:
Summary: A magnificent narrative wrapped in history
Review: This book is an excellent example of narrative non-fiction that spins along while managing a kind of density of detail and anecdote. The author has written many popular biographies whose subject matter was never commensurate with his extraordinary abilities. And yet, if you carefully read his most recent efforts -- Calvin Klein, Halston, The Beach Boys -- you will see the man's incredible gift for story-telling is grafted to his marvelous sense of detail. Past and present are seamlessly woven. Philistines -- as well as his earlier biography of the Beatles -- is one of the times when the subject mater matches his ability. The characters here are complexly limned, their lives etched indelibly into the reader's mind. Edgey, racey, elegantly written, Philistines is a MUST.
Rating:
Summary: Totally Fun
Review: This book is so much fun to read that I have recommended it to several people who were curious about the Hamptons and they enjoyed it too. Why do some reviewers crab that it is about the rich and famous? If I wanted to know about the poor and anonymous I would just have to look in my apartment.
Rating:
Summary: Great gossip!
Review: This book of money, money and money in the Hamptons read like one long glorious gossip column! But I don't mean this as a criticism - we wouldn't be human if we didn't like gossip. And what is juicier than fame, fortune and fabulous property? Add to it some serious eccentricity, and heavy summer traffic and you have one of the most entertaining reads of the year.
Rating:
Summary: Totally Fun
Review: This book thinks of itself as *the* history of the Hamptons, when it's about six people/houses. The first few chapters are interesting enough, but it is so misguided that it's almost comical. He'll say, "the entire town saw so-and-so go to the concert without such-and-such that night" as though 15,000 people are following the gossip of one couple. He tells us the color of people's drapes and the content of intimate conversations - this book is gossip of the rich or famous (a select few of them, anyway). It is so monotonously relentless in superficial detail that even taken as just what it is, half-way through the book every page made me mutter, "who cares?" There are *many* Hamptons residents who have nothing to do with the Hamptons presented in this book. It is so narrow. Narrow, though, isn't as much the problem as misguided is. The fact that the author doesn't think this book as the narrow slice of life it is, that he thinks *this* is the Hamptons, is an outrageous insult to those of us who live and breath here. Stop putting money in this guy's pocket, he doesn't deserve it. It infuriates me that Bookhampton is constantly sold out of this book. Ugh.
Rating: 
Summary: Over-rated drivel
Review: This book thinks of itself as *the* history of the Hamptons, when it's about six people/houses. The first few chapters are interesting enough, but it is so misguided that it's almost comical. He'll say, "the entire town saw so-and-so go to the concert without such-and-such that night" as though 15,000 people are following the gossip of one couple. He tells us the color of people's drapes and the content of intimate conversations - this book is gossip of the rich or famous (a select few of them, anyway). It is so monotonously relentless in superficial detail that even taken as just what it is, half-way through the book every page made me mutter, "who cares?" There are *many* Hamptons residents who have nothing to do with the Hamptons presented in this book. It is so narrow. Narrow, though, isn't as much the problem as misguided is. The fact that the author doesn't think this book as the narrow slice of life it is, that he thinks *this* is the Hamptons, is an outrageous insult to those of us who live and breath here. Stop putting money in this guy's pocket, he doesn't deserve it. It infuriates me that Bookhampton is constantly sold out of this book. Ugh.
Rating: 
Summary: horribly pretentious
Review: This book was terrible. We are reading it for our couples book club. I told my husband not to bother. Don't waste your time reading this one.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Summer's Read
Review: This is not Rand, nor Tolstoy, nor Fitzgerald, nor Dunne. One needn't think too much about such a book. Suffice to say that it is simply amusingly written and quite informative about such a seemingly provinicial world and the moneyed individuals who inhabit and have inhabited it. A good read, especially if one's planning to visit the region.
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