A Book of Days
By Patti Smith
15 November 2022 / hardback / £25 / non-fiction Bloomsbury
A deeply moving and brilliantly idiosyncratic visual book of days by the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M Train. More than 365 images chart Smith's singular aesthetic - inspired by her wildly popular Instagram.
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 never-before-seen photos 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 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.
ABOUT PATTI SMITH
A writer, performer, and visual artist, Patti Smith has exhibited her drawings and photographs internationally, most recently Camera Solo at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Hartford. She has recorded thirteen albums, launched by the seminal Horses in 1975. Her many books include Witt, Babel, The Coral Sea, Auguries of Innocence and Just Kids, which won the National Book Award in 2010. Patti Smith lives in New York City.
Patti’s Instagram, @thisispattismith, has over 1 million followers.