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\n\tPatti Smith<\/a> is one of those artists who defy categorization. A poet, a writer, a singer, a songwriter, and a portraitist, she defined the punk rock scene of the \u201970s and to this day continues blessing fans with avant-garde performances that many claim border on the transcendent. Smith\u2019s latest endeavor? A memoir<\/a> titled Bread of Angels<\/a><\/em>, which adds to a long list of books by the creative that include the internet-breaking 2010 release Just Kids<\/em>, M Train<\/em> (the audiobook version of which earned Smith a Grammy Award nomination<\/a> in the best spoken word album category), and The Coral Sea<\/em>, a metaphor-laden tribute to her one-time romantic and professional partner Robert Mapplethorpe. <\/p>\n \n\tBread of Angels<\/em> is now available to shop at Amazon in hardcover<\/a>, paperback<\/a>, made-for-Kindle<\/a>, or audiobook<\/a> form (you can score the latter for just 99 cents with an Audible membership<\/a>). In the three days since its release, the memoir has already clinched the #1 bestseller spot in Amazon\u2019s Rock Music genre<\/a>. Inside, you\u2019ll come across some of the National Book Award winner\u2019s most intimate recollections to date \u2014\u00a0as sweeping in scope as they are pivotal to understanding the woman behind the accolades.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t<\/a>\t<\/div> \n\tIt feels like Smith leaves no stone left unturned here, detailing everything from the first steps she took across the kitchen floor of her childhood home (\u201cI gravitated toward [my father] though it was my mother who was ever present, ever dominant,\u201d she writes of this milestone moment and others like it) to the string of diseases she suffered from in her early years (\u201cmine was a Proustian childhood, one of intermittent quarantine and convalescence,\u201d Smith recalls, adding that her father \u201csaved [her] as an infant\u201d through his care) to the shock that came with learning that this man was not biologically related to her.<\/p>\n \n\tBread of Angels<\/em> is jam-packed with close to eight decades\u2019 worth of memories, and though Smith also uses it as a chance to touch on her aforementioned relationship with Mapplethorpe, it\u2019s not as intense of an examination as that of Just Kids<\/a><\/em>. Instead, anchoring Smith\u2019s reminiscences of young adulthood through middle age in the book is her marriage to Fred \u201cSonic\u201d Smith \u2014 a successful guitarist for the rock band MC5 \u2014\u00a0whom she met at a very fruitful part of her own life, while touring after the release of her debut studio album Horses<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t<\/a>\t<\/div> \n\t\u201cWhen we first met, I had no idea who he was, but I knew instantly he would be my life. Such is the terrible mystery of love, that draws us from all that we know,\u201d Smith shares in Bread of Angels<\/em>, disarming readers with her unique ability to pull them into the spaces of her past, as if they shared her exact history.<\/p>\n \n\tSmith\u2019s newest, 288-page work is about love and art, about making mistakes and learning hard truths. It\u2019s also a piece about loss \u2014\u00a0a kind of elegy to grief itself and the lifelong effects it has on a person (Smith lost Mapplethorpe in March 1989, her husband in November 1994, and her brother a month later).<\/p>\n \n\tThroughout it all, Patti Smith<\/a> kept on writing.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Bread of Angels\u2019 by Patti Smith\t\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Horses\u2019 by Patti Smith\t\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n