Books for the holidays, and for the moment!

Patti Smith‘s new memoir about her youthful times with Robert Mapplethorpe, Just Kids, went to paperback in late September and won the National Book Award in mid-November. It’s been a moving and gratifying reading experience for dozens of people we’ve talked to in the shop.

And then there’s Keith Richards‘ biography, published last month in hardcover, called Life. Keith’s lived a baker’s dozen of them already – lives, that is – and writes about them with terrific narrative drive and humor.

Rock stars, both- and as it turns out, prose writers to the core. Keith had more help than Patti, we understand, but proved his mettle as an editor with this one.