SWEETER THAN FICTION

So, did you have a good year? Hope so, but Patti Smith’s was the 2010 to beat: Her memoir, Just Kids, won the National Book Award for nonfiction. An elegiac chronicle of life in 1960s-’70s New York City and her lifelong relationship with provocative photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, the book was a beautiful accomplishment, sewn tightly with such lovely lines as, “In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer.” Join one of New York’s most iconoclastic artists and ring out this banner year together, won’t you?

Wed., Dec. 29, 8 p.m.; Thu., Dec. 30, 8 p.m.; Fri., Dec. 31, 8 p.m., 2010