Summer reading for moguls

SUN VALLEY, IDAHO (Fortune) -- Ladies and gentleman, it's day two of media mogul summer camp. Free books for billionaires! After the morning presentations, the assorted heavyweight guests meandered out of the Sun Valley Inn's conference room and headed to the duck pond for the daily barbeque, weighed down with four volumes. None were exactly beach reading, but all were authored by writers with Sun Valley confab connections:

• "At the Center of the Storm: My Years in the CIA," by George Tenet, the embattled former CIA boss of "slam dunk" fame who is in attendance here, dressed like a frat boy in flip flops, khaki shorts and polo.

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• "This Time, This Place," by Jack Valenti, the late head of the Motion Picture Association of America. Valenti, a long time attendee here, passed away in April at age 85.
• "The New American Story," by Bill Bradley. The former senator, presidential candidate and New York Knick, is an Allen & Co. advisor.
• "Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation," by Stephen Flynn, of the Council on Foreign Relations. Flynn spoke to the gathering Thursday morning about security.

The other main event Thursday was a panel moderated by CNN's Anderson Cooper that featured Google (Charts, Fortune 500) co-founder Sergey Brin, Sony (Charts) boss Sir Howard Stringer and IAC's (Charts, Fortune 500) Barry Diller. The topic was content and strategy, and like all events here was closed to the press. Brin, however, after the presentation held court with the press and claimed that Yahoo!'s (Charts, Fortune 500) much publicized troubles - which culminated recently with CEO Terry Semel's ouster - were largely overblown in the media.

Most investments banks start hitting up reporters with invites and guest lists weeks in advance of their conferences. Not so Allen & Co., the discrete New York investment bank, which doesn't invite - but hardly discourages - the press from attending its annual media mogul summer camp in the Idaho mountains. Instead, Allen's contingent of surly, burly security guards erect natural barriers - potted trees, hanging plants - to hinder photographers' and reporters' views of the action. (Your intrepid Fortune writer was lambasted by one security guy Wednesday night for stepping outside the bar and lighting a cigar in too-close-proximity to official guests who were, ahem.. smoking cigars). Allen also mandates that the moguls - from Bill Gates to Rupert Murdoch - come entourage-free.

But after the closed-door morning presentations, the pairings over lunch - which is held in public view - provide fodder for intrigue and gossip. As for the aforementioned Semel - who gave up his CEO job but remains Yahoo!'s chairman - he was seen lunching with Time Warner (Charts) CEO Dick Parsons and his top deputy Jeff Bewkes. Parsons, for one, is known to be lusting after Yahoo! as a partner for Time Warner's AOL unit.

Meanwhile, Tom Freston, who about two months after last year's gathering here was fired by Sumner Redstone as Viacom's (Charts) CEO, has been in a jocular mood and gets the award for wittiest remark - at least for comments made in front of reporters. Wednesday night at the Sun Valley Lodge bar, after learning that a writer for Men's Vogue was here, Freston wondered if Soldier of Fortune was also covering the event.

Lastly, many expected to see Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of social networking site Facebook, which has been the subject of musings in the media over whether it will go public, sell out or stay private. Alas Zuckerberg is at another conference: Fortune's own iMEME conference in San Francisco.