In the Hamptons, the Film Festival Comes With a Bedside Table

Everyone heads to the Hamptons International Film Festival for movies. Makes sense. But come the first weekend of October, you’ll find some of the best stories hiding somewhere else entirely: next to your pillow.

This fall, Bedside Reading® tosses nine books from 12 authors into 11 Hamptons hotels, basically turning every nightstand into a surprise literary outpost. Four of those titles are getting the VIP treatment — they’ll end up in official Hamptons International Film Festival gift bags on October 2, so the most important guests might crack open a novel before hitting the next screening.

This is so Hamptons: show up for the movies, check in, drop your luggage, and hey, there’s a book just waiting for you beside your bed. You get culture, whether you’re awake or winding down.

Jane Ubell-Meyer, the brains behind Bedside Reading, has this gift for turning hotel rooms into unexpected stages for books. She’s a former TV and film producer, and it’s clear she believes every good experience starts with a story, not necessarily the kind you see, but the kind you stumble on when you turn down the covers.

“Everything starts with a great story,” Ubell-Meyer says. “Some stories are discovered on a screen. Some are discovered on a bedside table.”

The timing couldn’t be better. Film festivals are about finding something new — a director you’ve never heard of, a performance that makes you rethink everything, that one film everyone can’t stop talking about when the credits roll. Bedside Reading does the same with books: puts them smack in front of readers when they might actually have time to pick one up.

Here’s where you’ll find the stack: The Maidstone, Journey East Hampton, Mill House Inn, Hotel Moraine, The Baker House 1650, Capri Southampton, Southampton Inn, 1708 House, Canoe Place Inn & Cottages, Marram Montauk, Beachcomber Resort at Montauk. In other words, all over the East End.

And the lineup? All over the map. That’s half the fun.

There’s “Twisted Lives” Clark’s “A River Remembers” drops a forensic entomologist back home, only to stumble into a murder investigation, hidden families, and a killer watching from the shadows.

“What We Left Behind” by Valerie Nifora cracks open family secrets. “The Big Day” by Lisa Cheek kicks off with a woman finally saying yes to marriage at 49, only to find her wedding was never actually legal. That’s the kind of Hamptons plot twist that belongs on screen.

Feel like changing gears? “What Nature Teaches Us” by Clay and Amber Vilhauer tackles resilience, taking cues from the wilderness. Regina Oswald’s “Liberation From the Diet Prison” is all about sorting out the mess between body and mind.

For pure storytelling grit, there’s “Tortured Soles” by Fran Weinstein: a wild, funny ride through 22 years producing entertainment TV. “His Daughter” by Caryn M. McGill jumps into spiritual fantasy: God’s daughter, decisions between redemption and judgment. And then “The Eureka Machine” by AI pioneer Richard Socher, who dives into the idea that artificial intelligence might squeeze a century’s worth of scientific breakthroughs into a single decade.

So there isn’t really a “Bedside Reading” vibe — it’s not one thing. That’s the whole point.

The four books jumping into those VIP festival bags? They’re cinematic in their own right. Kimbra Drake’s “Where the Heart Meets the Sea”, Paul Attaway’s “Blood in the Low Country, “Lee Clark’s A” River Remembers,” and Christine Stringer’s “Charity Trickett Is Not So Glamorous “— they’ll make the leap from hotel tables right into the film crowd’s hands.

Pairing books with film isn’t just clever. It’s about attention. Movies ask you to sit in darkness, live in someone else’s world for two hours. Books want the same, but you do it quietly, alone.

And hotel rooms are now one of the few places you can actually stumble onto a book you never meant to find.

“Discovery doesn’t always happen in a bookstore,” Ubell-Meyer says. “It can happen in a hotel room, beside a pool, or inside a gift bag at a film festival.”

That’s been Bedside Reading’s secret since Ubell-Meyer launched it in 2017: put books where people are relaxed, let them discover writers by accident, not because they were hunting for them.

In the Hamptons, where movies, hotels, and books have always mixed, it feels right.

There’s something quietly festival-like about it. While crowds line up for premieres, and directors pitch their next big thing, somewhere down the road a guest kicks off their shoes, cracks open a book, and gets lost simply because it landed by their bed.

That’s how stories sneak up on you. Sometimes, that’s how they really begin.

Learn more at Bedside Reading®.

Ty Wenzel

Ty Wenzel is an award-winning writer, designer, and marketing professional with a career spanning fashion, publishing, media, and digital innovation. A recent breast cancer survivor, she began her career as a fashion coordinator for Bloomingdale’s before serving as fashion editor at Cosmopolitan Magazine. Her work has appeared in numerous national publications, including The New York Times, and she is the author of a memoir published by St. Martin’s Press. In 2020, Wenzel co-founded James Lane Post, where she covers lifestyle, real estate, architecture, and interiors. She previously served as a writer and marketing director for The Independent. Her work in journalism, social media, and design has been recognized with multiple PCLI and NYPA awards, including best website design and best magazine. Wenzel is also the founder of the Hamptons-based social media agency TWM Hamptons Social Media, where she develops high-level branding and digital strategy for luxury clients.