For the past seven years, Parker Ladd, the former host of the A&E series “The Open Book,” has been feting authors at the Brazilian Court Hotel & Beach Club, one of Palm Beach’s luxurious getaways. Beginning this month, the beach club’s eighth annual Author Breakfast Series will begin at 8:45 a.m. and continue until 10 a.m. on select Fridays. It’s a great way to kick off a Palm Beach day trip.
This year, Ladd will share his interviewing duties with Jackie Weld, a longtime executive at a renowned New York publishing house. Each breakfast will feature Q&As with two authors whose books range from biographies to historical epics to modern thrillers, often steeped in the lifestyles of the rich and famous (this is Palm Beach, after all).
The fun starts next Friday, Jan. 20, with Andrew Gross and Ivana Lowell. Gross is a master at churning out New York Times best-sellers with remarkable prolificacy; he coauthored five best-sellers alongside James Patterson before hitting paydirt on his own. His latest tome, “Eyes Wide Open,” weaves a story about the real-life suicide of his young nephew with a tale about a chance meeting with Charles Manson some 40 years earlier.
Ivana Lowell also plumbs her rich personal history in the memoir “Why Not Say What Happened?” A descendent of the Guinness beer fortune, Lowell grew up in luxury, the daughter of literary royalty: Her mother was Lady Caroline Blackwood, and her stepfather was poet Robert Lowell. This didn’t stop her from succumbing to alcoholism, and she writes about her bouts with the disease with startling candor.
On Friday, Jan. 27, the Brazilian Court will welcome two authors of historical works – one fiction, the other biography, divided by centuries. “The Dovekeepers” is the latest novel from literary writer Alice Hoffman. In between other projects, it took Hoffman five years to write this exhaustively researched, 512-page epic set in ancient Israel, when 900 Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada. She brings this lofty material down to earth by focusing on four powerful and complex women whose lives intertwine amid the conflict.
She’ll be joined by Chris Matthews, the author we’re most excited to hear (look for a review of this event over the weekend of Jan. 28). If you’ve watched more than five consecutive seconds of Matthews’ MSNBC talk show “Hardball,” you know that Matthews has written a new book, “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.” He promotes it incessantly; his show has more plugs than Home Depot. If you believe the reviews, the book is worth all the hype, delving beyond the surface of the former president’s truncated career and capturing, with a novelistic flair, what he was really like behind the cameras.
The series picks up again on Feb. 17, and we’ll have more on this program as the date approaches. Tickets to these events are $100 per person and include breakfast, valet parking and a copy of one of the featured books. Reservations are required. Call Sandra Rodriguez at 561/366-4301.
