If you’re making a list of the best living English-language novelists, Jeanette Winterson has to be somewhere on it. And her novels have become modern classics of lesbian fiction. So interest is awfully high for Winterson’s new memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, about her rocky relationship with her adoptive mother. Winterson had the sort of childhood—traumatic, plagued by cruelty—that creates a foundation for a world-class talent. Now that the truth behind her stories has been revealed, her armies of fans will love her even more. (Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave, www.spl.org, 7 pm, free)