Name: A Book of Days
SKU: 56159449
Price: 325.00 ZAR
Availability: InStock
Author: Patti Smith

Type

Physical Book

Author

Patti Smith

Publisher

Random House Trade

Year

2024

Language

English

Pages

400

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

17x12 cm

Weight

0.52 kg.

ISBN13

9780593730386

Synopsis "A Book of Days"

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply moving and brilliantly idiosyncratic visual book of days by the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids and M Train, featuring more than 365 images and reflections that chart Smith’s singular aesthetic—inspired by her wildly popular Instagram.

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Variety, Pitchfork, PopSugar

In 2018, without any plan or agenda for what might happen next, Patti Smith posted her first Instagram photo: her hand with the simple message “Hello Everybody!” Known for shooting with her beloved Land Camera 250, Smith started posting images from her phone including portraits of her kids, her radiator, her boots, and her Abyssinian cat, Cairo. Followers felt an immediate affinity with these miniature windows into Smith’s world, photographs of her daily coffee, the books she’s reading, the graves of beloved heroes—William Blake, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, Simone Weil, Albert Camus. Over time, a coherent story of a life devoted to art took shape, and more than a million followers responded to Smith’s unique aesthetic in images that chart her passions, devotions, obsessions, and whims. Original to this book are vintage photographs: anniversary pearls, a mother’s keychain, and a husband’s Mosrite guitar. Here, too, are photos from Smith’s archives of life on and off the road, train stations, obscure cafés, a notebook always nearby. In wide-ranging yet intimate daily notations, Smith shares dispatches from her travels around the world.

With over 365 photographs taking you through a single year, A Book of Days is a new way to experience the expansive mind of the visionary poet, writer, and performer. Hopeful, elegiac, playful—and complete with an introduction by Smith that explores her documentary process—A Book of Days is a timeless offering for deeply uncertain times, an inspirational map of an artist’s life.

Patti Smith

(Author)

View Author's Page

Patti Smith (Chicago, 1946) is a writer, singer, and visual artist. She gained significant recognition in the 1970s with the spread of her poetry and rock music. She has released twelve albums, including Horses, considered one of the top hundred of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. Smith held her first drawing exhibition at the Gotham Book Mart in 1973, was represented by the Robert Miller Gallery for three decades, and her retrospective exhibitions have taken place at the Andy Warhol Museum, the Cartier Foundation, and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Among her books, it is worth highlighting the story of her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe: Just Kids (Lumen, 2010), awarded the National Book Award, Witt, Babel, Woolgathering (Lumen, 2014), The Coral Sea (Lumen, 2012), Auguries of Innocence (Lumen, 2019), M Train (Lumen, 2016), Devotion (Lumen, 2018), Year of the Monkey (Lumen, 2020), and Book of Days (Lumen, 2023). In 2005, the French Minister of Culture awarded her the title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, the highest honor given to an artist by the French Republic. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Smith married musician Fred Sonic Smith in Detroit in 1980. They had a son, Jackson, and a daughter, Jesse. The author, who in 2020 received the Pen America Literary Service Award, resides in New York.

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