About the book
Patti Smith's first book of prose is a memoir of her bond with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whom she met by chance in Brooklyn in 1967. The two young artists, often broke and hungry, made a pact to look after each other while they pursued their art through New York in the late sixties and seventies, from Scribner's bookstore and Max's Kansas City to a room at the Hotel Chelsea. Smith describes the friends and figures around them, among them Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Sam Shepard. She frames it as a love story that turns into an elegy, and has said she wrote it to keep a promise she made to Mapplethorpe on his deathbed.
Dua Lipa, who calls Smith a personal hero, chose it for her Service95 Book Club, and Malcolm Gladwell said he read it in one sitting and then wept. Seth Godin praised Smith's own narration as the best audiobook ever recorded.
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This book has 4 recommendations
Seth Godin (Author & Entrepreneur)
This is the single best audiobook ever recorded by Patti Smith. It is not going to change the way you do business, but it might change the way you live. It's about love and loss and art.
Bogdan Iordache (Co-Founder/How to Web)
Patti Smith is a poet and singer, mostly known for her debut album, ""Horses"", said to mark the beginning of punk music. I read the book after seeing Patti perform live a couple of years ago, and it was amazing. As a tech founder / investor, the vast majority of my friends are also people involved in the technology world. We have the same problems, the same points of view, you basically live in a bubble which narrows a lot your understanding of other people. Yet Patti wrote about her artistic beginnings and she described such a different world - the early '70s in New York, the emerging punk scene around CBGB, and Andy Warhol's entourage. The book is so candid about those people's values and choices is almost disturbing. Loved it.
Malcolm Gladwell (Writer & Journalist)
I finished it in one sitting, then wept. It's that good.
This month, we are doing something a little different… our September Monthly Read is the memoir Just Kids by Patti Smith. Patti is an absolute rock and roll icon and a personal hero of mine so I am beyond excited to dive into this book.
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