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Year of the Monkey
- Narrated by: Patti Smith
- Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
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Year of the Monkey
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Summary
Bloomsbury presents Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith, read by Patti Smith.
From the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M Train, a profound, beautifully realised memoir in which dreams and reality are vividly woven into a tapestry of one transformative year.
Following a run of New Year’s concerts at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland, with no design yet heeding signs, including a talking sign that looms above her, prodding and sparring like the Cheshire Cat.
In February, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing with it unexpected turns, heightened mischief and inescapable sorrow. In a stranger’s words, 'Anything is possible: after all, it’s the year of the monkey.' For Patti Smith - inveterately curious, always exploring, tracking thoughts, writing the year evolves as one of reckoning with the changes in life’s gyre: with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America.
Smith melds the Western landscape with her own dreamscape. Taking us from Southern California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places - this haunting memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery. The unexpected happens; grief and disillusionment. But as Patti Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the listener: her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye and, above all, a rugged hope of a better world.
Riveting, elegant, often humorous, Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times.
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What listeners say about Year of the Monkey
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Andrea K. Marcou
- 01-10-20
Mesmerising
A beautiful book both mesmerising and thought provoking. Humour (dry) will bring a smile to your face. You won’t be disappointed
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- V. Austin
- 08-02-20
That Voice. Those Words.
I could listen to Patti Smith and her magic words for ever. A traveller’s memoir or thoughts and encounters over the course of a year. I loved it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- A. Peacock
- 29-11-20
beautiful book
the more I listen to Patti the more I wast to hear. love the ebb and flow if her voice as she recounts her adventure.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Miriam U.
- 02-02-21
Meandering but loved it...
Loved it & it was great to have the author read it. Will listen to her other books.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Mike Green
- 05-01-23
Wonderful memoir of a year in the life of a great poet
Wonderful memoir of a year in the life of a great poet/performer- part diary, part poetic stream of consciousness, part elegy to those who’ve gone before
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- papapownall
- 10-04-20
A year in the life of Patti Smith
This short book tells the story of a year in the life of Patti Smith between the ages of 69 and 70 - the year of the Monkey in the astronomical calendar. Unlike most biographies, she talks little of her work as a musician and poet but talks a lot about coffee shops she visits, the people she meets on her road trips, the hotels where she stays and the inanimate objects such as signs that she has conversations with. There is an almost magical quality to the writing and hearing her speak is spell binding. She talks about her friend and inspiration Sandy Pearlman and her sadness at his demise and her feeling of loss for others who have left her life. There is an underlying feeling of spirituality in the writing that is hard to define, it has the feeling of Jack Kerouac and Bob Dylan's Chronicles Volume One,. Ultimately it is the story of a drifter and a free spirit.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- a lisa
- 28-08-23
did not like it
First: I need to say I _had to_ listen to this 2x, not because I was in a rush, but because I felt extremely uncomfortable with the author’s voice, and fast-forwarding it helped. There’s an off-putting screech in her voice from what I can assume is overindulging in her smoking habit. I have to admit, I have one song I always liked from her, “Because the Night”, and her voice now is very far away from what one can hear in her recorded song. Aging aside, all that smoking killed her voice bad.
Second: yes, she can do poetic descriptions, but to what end? What was the point of this book? It felt like a lot of lamenting and self-exaggerated (I’m hyperbolising, as I felt it) martyrdom. I’m not really into becoming a fan, I don’t get idolising, so all the name dropping also put me off, from history, and the industry. I’m not into fame like that. Their songs and/or actions can live on, that matters. Insisting on the rest is just ego, and, maybe, lack of purpose. Also, describing a place by the people who visited it…there’s more to life than that, and to a place. Feels like she’s part of a group of people who just like bowing down to each other.
I guess it’s good I got this because of the sale…unfortunately. I did not like it.
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