THEATER: At the end of December 2003, with her daughter in an induced-coma brought on by septic shock from a fatal bout with pneumonia, Joan Didion’s husband John Gregory Dunne unexpectedly died during dinner. Her struggle to navigate the subsequent minefields of grief formed the basis for her best-selling memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking. She’s now adapted the book into a one-woman play of the same name, directed by David Hare and starring Vanessa Redgrave. (Photo of Didion and her late husband.) - John Del Signore more ›

MUSIC: Propect Park. TV on the Radio. Matt Pond PA. Voxtrot. Free. Need we say more? Bring a blanket. more ›

Garrison Keillor noted during his opening speech for last night's National Book Awards that this week is the opening of another Harry Potter film. He said, "Most of us have stood in Barnes & Noble and opened a Harry Potter book, read a few pages and said: 'I could have done that. I could have done that while doing all the other things that I do. Why didn't I?'" more ›

Beloved memoirist Augusten Burroughs will be giving a reading next Tuesday of his latest book, Magical Thinking, at Coliseum Books. And he's going to dish about the new film adaptation of Running with Scissors (Annette Bening will play his mom, Gabrielle Union his mother's girlfriend; Brian Cox is his mom's shrink and Gwyneth Paltrow, Kristin Chenoweth, and Evan Rachel Wood seem to be play his daughters). His last event, at Cooper Union, was totally packed in the steamy summer weather - so if you go, you might want to get there before 6: more ›

Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking Author more ›