If you wept over “Just Kids,” Patti Smith’s moving memoir of life with Robert Mapplethorpe — her erstwhile lover, best friend and muse — you wouldn’t be alone. “It brought me to tears to write it,” Smith says.
The National Book Award winner is now in paperback; out in March is another nostalgia trip, “Patti Smith: 1969-1976,” Judy Linn’s book of photos of the poet-performer whose life has long revolved around what she’s reading. “I have literally more than hundreds of books here,” Smith says of her Manhattan apartment. “I can look at my whole evolution as a human being through my books. They’re like another diary of my life.” Here’s part of that diary.
— Barbara Hoffman
The Return of the Dancing Master
by Henning Mankell
I’m a big Mankell fan — I’ve read all his books and I’m right in the middle of a galley of his latest. I love [his character] Kurt Wallender and all his men. This is a spinoff, but it’s so strong and beautifully structured and well-written. It stays in the bleakest area of Sweden where you can sense the darkness of the sky and the cold and mist.
Villette
by Charlotte Bronte
My sister Linda, whom I’m very close to, begged me to read this about 15, 20 years ago. It’s very autobiographical. Charlotte was a governess in Belgium for a while, and I believe she fell in love with her employer, a married professor. She did nothing improper, but she dreamed of him. I think this begat the story of Lucy Snowe and her long, complex and tragic romance.
Arthur Rimbaud
by Enid Starkie
When I was younger, I read books that people I admired read. I read somewhere that Modigliani, the painter, loved Rimbaud, so I wanted to know who Rimbaud was. “Illuminations” was sitting at an outdoor book stall. I didn’t have the money to buy it, so I impulsively took it. So began my lifelong readership of Rimbaud.
Pinocchio
by Carlo Collidi
My mother taught me how to read before I went to school. I got this at a charity bazaar and I sort of stumbled through it the first time and kept going. It’s one of the truly great tales of redemption in literature: It’s like a Christ tale — the puppet sacrifices himself for love, and he’s redeemed and resurrected. I just find this somewhat simple little story a template for life.