Just Kids in Our Shared Shelf

Apr 30, 2011 martha Boyle rated it really liked it

I have been meaning to read this for a long while and finally spent the past week devouring it in my spare time. What a beautiful book. It's easy to see why it is a National Book Award winner. I knew very little about Patti Smith before I started the book. I knew she was a "punk rocker" and I knew she had a relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe back in New York in the '70's. I knew that Mapplethorpe was controversial for some of his photographs and I could see why when I viewed a few of them yea ...more

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Dec 27, 2015 eb rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, non-fiction, poetry, memoirs, writing, art, audio-book, read-by-the-author, creativity, national-book-award

I loved listening to this. Patti Smith's voice is so genuine and interesting - her performance of writing so different than her performance of music (she has said things on the lines of "I am large, I contain multitudes" in the past re: her creative life and expressions).

Learning about the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe was fascinating. They shared everything and were very connected, human to human, in a way that defied rigid conceptions of s ...more

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Jan 19, 2010 Amanda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: knock-your-socks-off, non-fiction, good-covers

I loved this book and you probably will, too. Patti Smith's absolute reverence for reading and books and the city and art and people is invigorating. This is a story about a specific time in New York City, in a specific scene, and she is the perfect storyteller for it. The thing that struck me most was how much in the book is about books -- about what she's reading, her side gig searching for valuable used books.

I could go on and on about the many things I loved about this -- her description of ...more

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Apr 11, 2014 Marion for a Free Palestine rated it it was amazing

Shelves: warhol, poetry, art, non-fiction

Wonderfully atmospheric writing about love, and art and New York city in the age of CBGBs and the Chelsea Hotel. No need to be a prior Patti Smith or Robert Mapplethorpe fan to fall in love with both of them through her book.

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