M Train by Patti Smith will feature on the Radio 2 Fact not Fiction Book Club with Claudia Winkleman on Friday 30 October.
The book was selected with the help of a panel made up of Reading Agency and library staff from across the UK. Find out more about the new strand of the Radio 2 Book Club.
We have an exclusive extract available for you to read, and you can win 10 copies of Patti Smith’s book for your reading group – just visit our Noticeboard.
M Train
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, and across a landscape of creative aspirations and inspirations, we travel to Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico; to a meeting of an Arctic explorer’s society in Berlin; to a ramshackle seaside bungalow in New York’s Far Rockaway that Smith acquires just before Hurricane Sandy hits; 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 artists at work today.
Selection panel review
Our reading panel of staff from The Reading Agency and public library staff loved M Train – here are some of their comments:
“I really enjoyed this book, which is an unusual, meditative take on old age. I found it fascinating reading about the people she’s lost, who are in her thoughts every day, and her attempts to find solace in spaces around New York, from cafes to an abandoned house at the seaside. I liked it and would recommend it to other music fans.”
“I had only vaguely heard of Patti Smith when I started this book. Quite soon though I found myself looking up references to places and writers that she has loved. I now have a list of other books to read. I found her writing style engrossing and her reflections on her life, her travelling and the influences on her own writing and photography are fascinating. I hope that others reading this book will feel as inspired as I did to follow up on Jean Genet, Sylvia Plath, Murakami and others.”About the author
Patti Smith is a writer, performer and visual artist. She gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary merging of poetry and rock. She has released twelve albums, including Horses, which has been hailed as one of the top one hundred albums of all time by Rolling Stone. Smith had her first exhibit of drawings at the Gotham Book Mart in 1973 and has been represented by the Robert Miller Gallery since 1978. Her books include Just Kids, (winner of the 2010 National Book Award), Witt, Babel, Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, and Auguries of Innocence. In 2005, the French Ministry of Culture awarded Smith the prestigious title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, the highest honour given to an artist by the French Republic. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Smith married Fred Sonic Smith in Detroit in 1980. They had a son, Jackson, and a daughter, Jesse. Smith resides in New York City.
Get involved
Tune in to Claudia Winkleman’s Arts Show on Friday 30 October to hear an interview with Patti Smith talking about her book.
Win 10 copies of Patti Smith’s book for your reading group – just visit our Noticeboard.
Have you read M Train? You can share your thoughts with us on Twitter, using #MTrain or post a review.
Want to find out more? Take a look at the Radio 2 Book Club Twitter feed or find out more on the Radio 2 Book Club website.
