Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.American singer-songwriter, poet, painter, author and human-rights advocate Patti Smith first found herself in New York during the hippie takeover of 1967, a politically charged summer of free love, activism and riots. She worked in two Manhattan bookstores, Scribner’s and The Strand, and wrote verse, which led to her forming the Patti Smith Group in which she fused her Rimbaud- and Blake-inspired poetry with the emerging punk rock scene. She released her seminal punk album Horses in 1975 and then co-wrote her biggest hit “Because the Night” with Bruce Springsteen three years later. Despite her success, Patti opted for a more secluded life after she met MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith, who she married in 1980. She moved to Michigan to be with him and there they raised a family in Detroit. When she returned, 16 years later, she was a widow with two children, Jackson and Jesse Paris Smith. She wasted no time in introducing them to her version of the city. To this day, Jesse, then nine, remembers walking into Gotham Book Mart, which was run by Patti’s old friend Andreas Brown. She was as mesmerised by the piles of rare and antique books as her mother had been on first entering the store three decades before. “I fell in love with it because such a place didn’t exist any longer,” Patti says of her first encounter. The shop has since formed the backdrop for a bank of shared and overlapping experiences. It was among the aisles that Patti, aged 78, met literary luminaries such as Samuel Beckett. And it’s where Jesse first discovered the work of artist and author Edward Gorey. “Andreas was always very kind to me and gave me gifts of Edward Gorey books as well as T-shirts and tote bags adorned with his drawings and quotes,” Jesse recalls. “These became very special possessions to me, and I still have two of the T-shirts, one of which I wore so often the colour ran out after so many washes.” The slogan on one shirt “Too Many Books, Too Little Time” has become a motto for the 37-year-old musician, composer, climate activist and writer who, like her mother, is a Grammy-nominated artist and bibliomaniac. For a number of years Jesse worked as a bookbinder in Manhattan. “I started my own business called Fourviere Hill, which focused on sustainable practices of bookbinding, and did this until my music work started taking more of my time,” she says. “For some reason, I felt I had to choose between bookbinding and composing music. I wish someone would have helped me to continue with both!”Patti’s literary achievements are highly appreciable. Her memoir Just Kids about her relationship and creative bond with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the late ’60s won a National Book Award in 2010. Both mother and daughter remain passionate about the world of vintage books and letters; they eagerly anticipate the first blossoms of April, which signal the return of the ABAA New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, staged at Park Avenue Armory. “It’s like a museum, but where you can touch and explore everything,” says Jesse, who is the fair’s founding ambassador. The show, which has been running for 60-plus years and opens this week for its 65th edition, is the largest fair of its kind in the world, showcasing nearly 200 booths offering rare collectable books, manuscripts, maps and other ephemera. And it remains a place of discovery. “It’s the kind of place where a bookseller will tell you everything about a $2mn manuscript inside a glass case even though they know you are not a buyer,” adds Jesse who, this year, has introduced six new ambassadors, each bringing unique perspectives, platforms, communities and programming to the fair, in addition to a programme in which Gorey’s “gothic, macabre, but funny” universe will feature, marking what would have been his 100th birthday. She and Patti are true fans. In February, the pair delivered a musical performance at a birthday event organised by the Edward Gorey Charitable Trust at Manhattan’s Raines Law Room.Patti is proud of her daughter’s dedication to a corner of collecting that is at risk of dying out. “I always leave with a few pieces within my budget,” she explains, “because I love supporting a world that has already quite diminished.” Jesse first attended the fair with a close family friend more than a decade ago and was charmed immediately. It reminded her of the bookshelves at the family home in Michigan. “It resembled my mom’s library, full of gems,” she recalls. “Everything was so familiar, including the feeling of growing up with a writer-parent.” Charlotte Brontë’s book of poems, A Book of Ryhmes The fair is also “a way to share a common history”, says Patti. Beat-generation poet Gregory Corso, who, during Patti’s Chelsea Hotel days was an early mentor, was an inevitable presence on Jesse’s reading list; it was at the fair that she acquired a draft of a zine featuring his work from Dan Wechsler of Sanctuary Books, as well as a copy of his seminal book Gasoline from another bookseller. “I am delighted that Jesse fell in love with Gregory’s poetry,” says Patti. Other cherished moments include finding Charlotte Brontë’s long-lost miniature book of poems, A Book of Ryhmes, at James Cummins’s stand in 2022 – the same Madison Avenue bookseller the pair chose as a location for this photoshoot. The Jane Eyre author penned the hand-stitched 15-page book aged 13 in 1829. “As Charlotte’s birthday was in April, we sang a little birthday song to honour her after the lights had gone down and the sellers were packing up for the day,” says Jesse. The book was ultimately acquired by the Friends of the National Libraries for $1.25mn to donate to the Brontë Society’s Parsonage Museum. The Brontë Society and Tartarus Press will republish the collection this month: Patti has written the introduction.Patti and her Parisian dealer friend Julien Paganetti of Autographes Des Siècles share similar taste and a mutual admiration of French poets and artists, and from him she has purchased several beloved items such as a watercolour of the poet Paul Verlaine, painted on his deathbed.Jesse, meanwhile, is an admirer of books and items related to Henry David Thoreau and the writers of Concord; Patti hopes to find a Thoreau carte de visite to gift to her daughter one day. “They are these business card-type printouts with the person’s picture on one side,” she explains of the collectables. Getting her hands on a Thoreau has thus far eluded her. A few years ago, she “raced through the aisles” having been told of one’s existence, but missed out to another buyer. “I should put out a flyer this year,” she jokes. Despite visiting the fair for decades, finding a letter by Sylvia Plath or a first edition from an old friend like Allen Ginsberg or William S Burroughs still “beguiles” her. But she says she experiences the “strangest of the emotions” when confronted by her own handwriting: a letter from the 1970s, a postcard from the ’80s, or even a lost old Polaroid can often find its way into a glass case. Aside from being jettisoned back in time for a brief second, the author and musician always feels humbled. “I am not worthy of being next to a letter from Wagner or Puccini!”Mother and daughter play a game of “what would you choose if you had $1mn to shop at the fair” but quickly give up, both agreeing the magic of connecting with books and friends is the main draw. For Patti, one truth remains. “All my books are her books anyway,” she says. The ABAA New York International Antiquarian Book Fair runs at the Park Avenue Armory 3-6 April
