Patti Smith's Bread of Angels is a triumph

Joseph O'Connor, Irish Times, Books of the Year

Smith's eye for life's everyday transcendence rarely fails her

Sunday Times, Books of the Year

Quietly sacred, utterly beautiful

Service 95

Reads more like a gospel or a beat prose-poem than a conventional autobiography … Smith is acutely aware of being part of a dying breed, those who grew up outdoors, devoured books - and fell in love. At a time when love has never been so undervalued, when “boyfriends are embarrassing”, according to Vogue, when the union of two humans is mere content, it is lovely to read about love as sacred. Smith, once again, shows us a better way to be ourselves

Evening Standard

The post-pandemic flood of artist memoirs continues, but Patti Smith stands apart… you see the rebel artist being born in stop-motion…The narrative is radiant and intimate… A transcendent sequence that follows – like those moments in her songs when poetic incantation takes flight – displays her eccentric writing style not as a tic but a superpower… She sang herself into being. She's written – is still writing – her own story

Guardian

Just Kids is the memoir we've name-checked as a favourite read for the last 15 years, but just wait until you've sunk your teeth into Patti Smith's latest Bread of Angels. From her postwar childhood to becoming a rock icon and poet, she reflects on art, love and resilience in her most intimate memoir to date

Elle