The National Endowment of the Arts is currently sponsoring a series of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" happenings on Staten Island, as part of The Big Read, an initiative to revitalize literary reading through a community discussion of a single work. Watch Staten Islanders read some Mark Twain.

If there is a lesson to be learned from the post-curtain talk between John Hurt — who has just finished a limited run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater in Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape” — and philosopher Simon Critchley, it’s that if you throw philosophy at an actor, he’ll throw it right back.

This month, Happy Ending Music and Reading series curator Amanda Stern welcomed three Yaddo alums to Joe’s Pub for a program entitled “Reality and Scandal.”

Judge Jennifer G. Schecter removed Marx's license for six months, fined him $500 and sentenced him to attend a defensive driving program, enroll in 16 sessions of counseling with a state-certified substance abuse counselor and install ignition interlock devices in his vehicles.

The Asia Society inaugurated its new Asian Arts & Ideas series this month with “The ‘Chindia’ Dialogues." Listen to a conversation between historian Jonathan Spence and the Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh.

The poet Anne Sexton took her own life in 1974, but had she lived, this year would have marked her 83rd birthday. Reason enough, thought the actor Paul Hecht, to organize an elegant tribute to her at the Cornelia Street Café on Nov. 14.

Two famed poets, essayists and translators — Lydia Davis and Eliot Weinberger — recently read from new work at the True Story: Non-Fiction reading series at the KGB Bar in the East Village. Listen to the audio here.

The financially struggling St. Mark's Bookshop in the East Village will stay open after its landlord, Cooper Union, agreed to reduce its rent by 12.5 percent and forgive $7,500 in back rent.

Joan Didion's latest book, "Blue Nights," explores the death of her 39-year old adopted daughter Quintana. It's an event, “I hadn't dealt with it at any level, and I needed to,” she told WNYC's Leonard Lopate on Wednesday.

If you see a superhero walking around Midtown Manhattan this weekend, chances are he or she is here for Comic Con. The convention kicked off Thursday, and it is about more than just comics. Movies, television shows, books and video games — not all of them based on comics — are represented, and so are the fans.

The Adaptations Project has adapted "Kaddish," which the beat poet published 50 years ago, for the stage. "Kaddish (or The Key in the Window)" is a multimedia one-man show that opens on Thursday night.

The "New Chapter" initiative lifts overdue fines for patrons under 18 at New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library and Queens Library branches through October 31.

More than 260 authors and panelists will be in downtown Brooklyn on Sunday for the sixth annual Brooklyn Book Festival. Panels are devoted to a wide range of topics during the day-long free fest. Everything from food politics to the Arab Spring to mystery writing to Mad Libs will be on the table. Here are some of WNYC's festival picks:

This month, cultural institutions around the city are paying respect to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks through literature, visual arts, theater, dance, music, and film. Here's our guide to what's happening around town.

The gallery of Building 110 will be overtaken with silver balloons filled with a mixture of helium and air on which visitors will be encouraged to complete the phrase "The Truth is..." using Sharpie markers.

On Saturday, some 30 young writers will read poetry and fiction alongside well-known Brooklyn writers at Fort Greene Park's monument. The younger set, aged 7 to 17, has worked with the New York Writers Coalition on honing their creative writing chops this summer. Listen to their poems here.

Gumshoe fans got some good news this week. Titan Books has plans to publish three unfinished Mickey Spillane crime novels, all of them starring the hard-boiled vigilante P.I. Mike Hammer.

Forgot to return a library book or DVD? Got library fines that you are reluctant to pay? The solution is here. Programs at libraries in Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island are helping borrowers to wipe the slate clean of their overdue library fines — if they just read.

The First Annual New York Poetry Festival takes place this weekend in and among the green lawns, rows of London Plane trees and historic brick houses of Governors Island. More than 130 poets from across the country will read their work.

It looks like the final chapter for Borders, the Michigan-based big-box book, music and media seller. The company could begin closing its remaining 399 stores, five of which are in New York City, as early as Friday.