Vesna's Reviews > A Book of Days

I love Patti Smith. I can’t say her band was my most favorite from their CBGB days (those would be The Ramones, Talking Heads, and Lou Reed), but I am in awe with her versatile talents and endeared by her radiant persona. It’s not then surprising that on impulse I reached out for her A Book of Days immediately as I saw it published last month. And I usually don’t make good choices when acting on impulse.

This book left me with mixed feelings. It’s a calendar book, which I used to like more in the past than now and the only one that found its permanent place on my shelves is Tolstoy’s A Calendar of Wisdom. If their concept or author is to our personal liking, they can be alluring because, as Smith wrote in her preface, it’s “Three hundred and sixty-six ways of saying hello.” (she includes the leap day) Which she does… on Instagram. And this book is practically an Instagram in a print form ... for $29 (or, rather, $28.99 as retailers would like to mark the price) … published by a big commercial publisher (Random House) shrewdly launching it at the time of the year when people massively buy calendars and calendar books.

Still, Patti Smith’s world is fascinating with each day illustrated by a photograph and a brief text. Sharing memories from travels around the world, honoring her favorite writers, artists, musicians, public figures, many of whom are my own favorites which delighted me. But there are also her friends and family, some famous others less so, usually with brief captions that have no meaningful personal significance for a reader who bought this book. Except for those honoring her mother, father, her childhood, Fred, cat Cairo, dog Snowy, which are annotated with a moving sentence or two that can be relatable to all of our mothers, fathers, lovers, pets.

Many of the photos are not her own and they are fully credited at the end of the book. I only wish she had included more of her own photography, especially when taken with her old Polaroid and evocatively accompanied by her beautiful words and thoughts. Here are a couple of them:


19 February. This is the Peace Pagoda in Japantown, San Francisco. The strange weather gave everything the inner glow and aura of another time, the tower emerging from the mist like an old postcard faded in the sun.



7 March. Everything in the adobe dwelling and studio in Abiquiú breathes of Georgia O’Keeffe. The surface of the walls, the ladder, the surrounding landscape, and the dry bones beyond.



1 May. When I was young, May Day was also called children’s day, a time of ribbons and white dresses, turning in circles in the bright fields and fashioning garlands of wildflowers.

It’s regrettable that these are very sparing in the book.

Another attraction are her inspiring brief thoughts about the favorite writers and artists on the dates of their birth or death. Smith’s instagram (thisispattismith), however, can be a better (and cheaper) place for much of the rest. This book is only for her hardcore fans.