NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 • NPR’s Books We Love • Named a Best Book of 2025 by The Guardian • Barnes & Noble • The New Yorker • Variety • ELLE

“An expansive cradle-to-late-life account of Smith’s experiences over eight decades. One of the marvels of Bread of Angels is that . . . it is remarkably fresh, with long sections on subjects about which Smith has rarely written or even said much publicly. . . . Enlightening.” —The New York Times

“Radiant and intimate. . . . [Bread of Angles] make[s] plain . . . the Patti Smith we know gave birth to herself. She sang herself into being. She’s written—is still writing—her own story.” —Will Hermes, Rolling Stone

“Bread of Angels poignantly and satisfyingly expresses what has been important to Patti Smith.” —Winnipeg Free Press

“Smith’s incantatory voice shines through in this surprisingly revelatory follow up. . . . It could be described as Just Kids’ prequel and sequel, moving from Smith’s hardscrabble childhood to the near-present, where a striking twist takes the narrative back to her literal conception. . . . [Bread of Angels] casts a potent spell, and you’ll learn as much about the artist from her style as from the stories themselves.” —The Guardian

“Bread of Angels augments the list of romantically crumbling places that Smith treasures. Riveting. . . .We love her because of her aura of rough authenticity, her earnestness, her seer’s way with words and her occasional snarl.” —The Washington Post

“A fantastic read—a portrait of an artist who was at the heart of New York’s counter-cultural scene in the 1970s. Smith writes with her usual vividness about her upbringing. But what radiates most from the book is how she developed her artistic passions from a really young age.” —BBC

“Mesmerizing. . . . [Bread of Angels] moved me deeply.” —Los Angeles Times

“[Smith’s] winding, lush paragraphs and sharp insights are a great pleasure. . . . There is a sort of clarity and calm in the writing, a tone perfectly balanced between coolness and passion. . . . God save the queen. Vive la reine.” —The Irish Times

“Outlined in a soothing, expressive voice, Bread of Angels. . . . is beautifully detailed. . . . [An] elegantly written book.” —Irish Independent

“[An] exuberant new book. . . . Here, Smith accomplishes the impossible: baring her soul while preserving a sense of inscrutable mystery.” —Hamilton Cain, TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2025

“[Bread of Angels] is a must-read for music fans, especially after the gut-punch that was her 2010 work titled Just Kids. . . . Her writing is just as impactful as her music.” —Amina Ayoud, Billboard

“Smith's beautiful, slightly ornate writing voice is as original as everything else about her life and
work.” —NPR, ‘Maureen Corrigan’s 10 favourite books of 2025’

“Patti Smith has created a memoir which reads more like gospel or beat prose-poem than a conventional autobiography. . . . With Bread of Angels, Smith expands into the tale of her entire life, one that starts slow, before gaining pace and hitting a full heightened gallop, mirroring those improvisational songs on her debut album, Horses, which turned 50 this month.” —The Standard

“In these pages, ‘the hourglass overturns. Each grain a word that erupts into a thousand more.’ It is a deep pleasure to spend time lost in this world of memories, ideas and poetry.” —The Spectator (Australia)

“In this latest in her series of gloriously transporting memoirs. . . . [Smith’s] earliest memories shimmer as if through a looking glass in the back of a wardrobe. . . . No less than her classic albums Horses and Easter, this is Patti Smith’s work, crated with the same deep faith, poetic precision and visionary charge, not reduced but amplified by the urgency of age.” —The Sydney Morning Herald