“This is how I live, I am thinking.”﻿“But I would also keep on living, refusing to surrender my pen.”

“I loved my coat and the café and my morning routine. It was the clearest and simplest expression of my solitary identity.” - Patti Smith

Smith’s Identity

“No one wins anything; winning is an illusion” - Patti Smith

“Winning”

“Are our thoughts nothing but passing trains, no stops, devoid of dimension, whizzing by massive posters with repeating images?” - Patti Smith

Passing Ideas

<ul><li>“Such things that disappear in time we find ourselves longing to see again. We search for them in close-up, as we search for our hands in a dream.” - Patti Smith</li><li>“How is it that we never completely comprehend our love for someone until they’re gone.” - Patti Smith</li><li>“Why is it that we lost the things we love, and things cavalier cling to us and will be the measure of our worth after we’re gone.” - Patti Smith</li></ul>

Passing Time

Patti Smith is a brilliant writer. I’ve previously read “Just Kids” and loved it. M Train is a writer’s collection of coffee, love, and art. How each relate, and how life is an art.

From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: a “sublime collection of true stories … and wild imaginings that take us to the very heart of who Patti Smith is” (Vanity Fair), told through the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. Patti Smith calls this bestselling work “a roadmap to my life.” M Train begins in the tiny Greenwich Village café where Smith goes every morning for black coffee, ruminates on the world as it is and the world as it was, and writes in her notebook. Through prose that shifts fluidly between dreams and reality, past and present, we travel to Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico; to the fertile moon terrain of Iceland; to a ramshackle seaside bungalow in New York’s Far Rockaway that Smith acquires just before Hurricane Sandy hits; to the West 4th Street subway station, filled with the sounds of the Velvet Underground after the death of Lou Reed; and to the graves of Genet, Plath, Rimbaud, and Mishima. Woven throughout are reflections on the writer’s craft and on artistic creation. Here, too, are singular memories of Smith’s life in Michigan and the irremediable loss of her husband, Fred Sonic Smith. Braiding despair with hope and consolation, illustrated with her signature Polaroids, M Train is a meditation on travel, detective shows, literature, and coffee. It is a powerful, deeply moving book by one of the most remarkable multiplatform artists at work today. Featuring a postscript with five new photos from Patti Smith

health

Health

timemanagement

Time Management

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

books

Books

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: a “sublime collection of true stories … and wild imaginings that take us to the very heart of who Patti Smith is” (Vanity Fair), told through the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. Patti Smith calls this bestselling work “a roadmap to my life.” M Train begins in the tiny Greenwich Village café where Smith goes every morning for black coffee, ruminates on the world as it is and the world as it was, and writes in her notebook. Through prose that shifts fluidly between dreams and reality, past and present, we travel to Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico; to the fertile moon terrain of Iceland; to a ramshackle seaside bungalow in New York’s Far Rockaway that Smith acquires just before Hurricane Sandy hits; to the West 4th Street subway station, filled with the sounds of the Velvet Underground after the death of Lou Reed; and to the graves of Genet, Plath, Rimbaud, and Mishima. Woven throughout are reflections on the writer’s craft and on artistic creation. Here, too, are singular memories of Smith’s life in Michigan and the irremediable loss of her husband, Fred Sonic Smith.     Braiding despair with hope and consolation, illustrated with her signature Polaroids, M Train is a meditation on travel, detective shows, literature, and coffee. It is a powerful, deeply moving book by one of the most remarkable multiplatform artists at work today. Featuring a postscript with five new photos from Patti Smith

M Train

PATTI SMITH

Smith’s Identity

“Winning”

Passing Ideas

Passing Time

CURATED BY

CURATOR'S NOTE

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