A year according to Patti Smith: 366 ways to say hello on Instagram

The American artist has published ‘A Book of Days’, a photographic compilation of 366 entries from the personal to the universal

The final photograph from Patti Smith's book 'A Book of Days'.Patti Smith (El libro de los días / Editorial Lumen)

Apr 10, 2023 - 17:20CEST

On March 20, 2018, Patti Smith posted a first photo on her Instagram account. She had opened @Thisispattismith at the request of Jesse, her daughter. “I thought the platform would be a good fit for me, as I write and take photos every day,” the American singer-songwriter says in the foreword to her new book.

Today her account has one million followers and she likes the Instagram format so much that she has published A Book of Days, which features 366 entries dated from January 1 to December 31. It is akin to Instagram on the page, covering a leap year. Short texts accompany shots taken with her cell phone, Polaroids she snapped in the past and photos from her personal archive. Among them are public figures including Martin Luther King Jr., Joan Báez, and Greta Thunberg; literary obsessions like Borges or Murakami; books from her collection; photos of Smith and her late loved ones: her husband, Fred, her mother, and her brother, Todd. Also featured are her children, Jackson and Jesse, her inseparable guitarist, Lenny Kaye, and her cat, Cairo. The list is extensive and that’s the fun of the book. It’s like a 12-month long Advent calendar. Patti Smith’s style has always consisted of being very personal and at the same time universal. Why would she change now?

"Jesse with flowers in the snow," reads this entry featuring Smith's daughter.Patti Smith (El libro de los días / Editorial Lumen)

The author's bed at her Rockaway Beach home.Patti Smith (El libro de los días / Editorial Lumen)

"I give thanks for seemingly small things, like my glasses, without which I couldn't read," an entry for May 4.Patti Smith (El libro de los días / Editorial Lumen)

"My old Italian cowboy boots," Smith writes.Patti Smith (El libro de los días / Editorial Lumen)

"My brother's Navy flag. Tied by him, it will forever remain so in his memory." Todd Smith died in the mid-1990s.Patti Smith (El libro de los días / Editorial Lumen)

"'Limenitis arthemis astyanax' in Midland (Kentucky)," a July 8 entry.Patti Smith (El libro de los días / Editorial Lumen)

This photograph closes the book with one of those stories so beautiful that they seem made up: "On my birthday my mother always called me at 6:01 a.m. and left me this message: 'Wake up, Patricia, you have been born.'"Patti Smith (El libro de los días / Editorial Lumen)

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