![]() ![]() Prompted by a meeting of the Continental Drift Club-an obscure, now-disbanded society (of which Smith was a member) dedicated to the memory of Alfred Wegener, the originator of the theory of continental drift-Smith’s visit to Berlin begins with her checking into a hotel that’s “a renovated Bauhaus structure in the Mitte district of the former East Berlin.” Although she doesn’t name it, this description along with its proximity to the church of St. ![]() At loose ends one weekend while reading the book, I retraced her steps around the city. She takes us with her on her travels: French Guiana, London, Mexico, Japan, Yorkshire, Tangier, and, as luck would have it, Berlin. ![]() Smith writes about her home life in New York City, which centers around a now-shuttered coffee shop, Café ’Ino, and Rockaway Beach, where she impulse-buys a modest bungalow she nicknames the Alamo. Work commitments kept me apart from my husband for the early part of the year, and my solitude created an ideal state of mind to absorb M Train, which in large part is a meditation on being a woman alone in the world-and the search for a great cup of coffee. ![]() Patti Smith’s most recent memoir, M Train, was my amiable, occasionally absent-minded companion through the frigid first weeks of January in Berlin. ![]()
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