Published by Bloomsbury, 2022, 386 pages.

This is a book that keeps giving. The multi-talented Patti Smith—singer, songwriter, photographer, author, painter—has put together a collection of photographs (most of them taken by Smith with her 250 Land Camera), one for each day of the year. This book came from her Instagram account, which she started with “Hello everybody!” and which developed a huge following.

The photos are often black and white, each accompanied by a short text. Some of these texts explain the photograph, others are Smith’s reveries inspired by it. Smith has a gift of language and imagery. Her texts, like her photographs, are thoughtful and evocative. In the caption accompanying a picture of tangled wires and foot pedals, she writes: “The foot pedals of resonant mastery: a dissonant monsoon, a cacophonic cathedral, the sounds of a weeping heart.”

Through these pictures, she takes you into her world. Photos of her family and friends, photos taken in her home, and on her travels and concerts all over the world. An Alexander McQueen t-shirt, a pair of old Italian boots, a sewing basket, a garden left to grow wild, and a pair of glasses. Simple images, but each one speaks volumes.

There are images that look inward, like Smith’s hand by a cup of coffee, with the caption Struggle. You don’t know why she is struggling but you don’t need to. We have all been through moments like these.  There is also humour: a picture of Ultraman in Tokyo, a selfie of Smith and her daughter with both their faces covered.

The ghosts of writers, artists, musicians, and those who have made a difference, haunt these pages. Susan Sontag, Arthur Rimbaud, Marcel Proust, Simone Veil, Frida Kahlo, Charles Baudelaire, Rosa Parks, Dylan Thomas, John Coltrane, the Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, and so many more. Smith marks their birthdays, the days they died, and by remembering them makes sure we do too. She has photos of the sickbed of Keats, the death mask of Lincoln, and the grave of Shelley which, with a trick of light, feels like “his restless spirit seemed to rise and enter the frame”. There is a photograph of Anne Sullivan, “the American teacher who led young Helen Keller out of the darkness. On her birthday, we mark with gratitude the generosity and sacrifice of our teachers.”

The images are moving, poignant and powerful. I received this book for my birthday in December 2022 and started looking at it from 1 January 2023, following the year in pictures.

And now that the year is done, I keep going back to it, leafing through it, letting a random picture wash over me. Smith’s photographs are deeply personal and universal at the same time, which is what makes this book so rich and such a pleasure to own.