#70 in Biography & memoir
M Train
- NYT bestseller · 4 weeks on the list, peaked at #4
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About the book
M Train is a journey through eighteen "stations." It begins in the tiny Greenwich Village cafâe where Smith goes every morning for black coffee, ruminates on the world as it is and the world as it was, and writes in her notebook. We then travel across a landscape of creative aspirations and inspirations: from Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul in Mexico, to a meeting of an Arctic explorer's society in Berlin; from the ramshackle seaside bungalow in New York's Far Rockaway that Smith buys just before Hurricane Sandy hits, to the graves of Genet, Plath, Rimbaud, and Mishima. Woven throughout are reflections on the writer's craft and on artistic creation, alongside signature memories including her life in Michigan with her husband, guitarist Fred Sonic Smith, whose untimely death was an irremediable loss. For it is loss, as well as the consolation we might salvage from it, that lies at the heart of this memoir, augmented by black-and-white Polaroids taken by Smith herself.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.0 across 73 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 33% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Biography & memoir average of 8.1. That is how 8.1 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.0 | 6 | 8% |
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 67 | 92% |
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Biography & memoir — with scores between 8.0 and 8.1, closest to this book.
