Best-selling novelist Alice Hoffman turns to nonfiction with her slim volume of inspiration essays, Survival Lessons, offering up advice for fellow cancer patients, survivors and loved ones (along with fun asides like a brownie recipe and hat-knitting instructions). Tonight, she’ll chat with friend Ann Leary, author of The Good House and wife of Denis Leary. As Hoffman told The Observer, “My hope is that Survival Lessons is the book you want to give to a friend who’s going through tough times, whether it be a bad diagnosis, a breakup or the loss of a loved one. It’s the book I wish I had when I needed to be reminded that, despite my sorrows, life was still worth living and that it was a good idea to start with the small changes you could make in a search for happiness.” An added incentive to check it out: Hoffman donated her advance to the Hoffman Breast Center at Mount Auburn Hospital.
Strand Book Store, 828 Broadway, 212-473-1452, 7 p.m., $15
