--- product_id: 224417436 title: "Year of the Monkey" price: "3646 som" currency: KGS in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.kg/products/224417436-year-of-the-monkey store_origin: KG region: Kyrgyzstan --- # Year of the Monkey **Price:** 3646 som **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Year of the Monkey - **How much does it cost?** 3646 som with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.kg](https://www.desertcart.kg/products/224417436-year-of-the-monkey) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Riveting, elegant, humorous—this "picaresque voyage through Patti Smith’s dreams and life, blending fiction and reality, conjured characters and actual ones” ( The New York Times ) is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times. I llustrated by Smith’s signature Polaroids. Following a run of new year’s concerts at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland, in which she debates intellectual grifters and spars with the likes of a postmodern Cheshire Cat. Then, in February 2016, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and inescapable sorrow. For Smith—inveterately curious, always exploring, always writing—this becomes a year of reckoning with the changes in life’s gyre: with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America. Taking us from California to the Arizona desert, from a Kentucky farm to the hospital room of a valued mentor, Smith melds the western landscape with her own dreamscape in a haunting, poetic blend of fact and fiction. As a stranger tells her, “Anything is possible. After all, it’s the Year of the Monkey.” But as Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the reader: her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope for a better world. Including a new chapter, "Epilogue of an Epilogue," and ten new photos, Year of the Monkey “reminds us that despair and possibility often spring from the same source” ( Los Angeles Times ). Review: Stirs my soul. - What can I say? I'm a fan of Patti Smith's work, be it music or literature. And yes, this is literature of the finest kind. Review: ”…the trouble with dreaming is that we eventually wake up.” - ”Marcus Aurelius asks us to note the passing of time with open eyes. Ten thousand years or ten thousand days, nothing can stop time, or change the fact that I would be turning seventy in the Year of the Monkey. Seventy. Merely a number but one indicating the passing of a significant percentage of the allotted sand in an egg timer, with oneself the darn egg. The grains pour and I find myself missing the dead more than usual. I notice that I cry more when watching television, triggered by romance, a retiring detective shot in the back while staring into the sea, a weary father lifting his infant from a crib. I notice that my own tears burn my eyes, that I am no longer a fast runner and that my sense of time seems to be accelerating.” This often reads as though it were written under a fever-dream and other times the random musings of the poet ”…plucking inspiration from the erratic air”, all the while trying to focus on the things which are established, and her memories of the years gone by. At this point in her life, she has just celebrated her 69th birthday, is contemplating turning seventy in the coming year, concerned over two friends whose health was rapidly fading, the then-coming election, all while drinking lots of coffee, and mourning those who have passed on, and feeling helpless toward those merely hanging on. ”There was work to be done, concerts to perform, lives to live, however carefully.” And the lives of two men that she loved would be gone before another year arrived. ”The wooden bed in the corner of the room seems so far away, and all is but an intermission, of small and tender consequences.” And as the new year starts winding toward the next one, the chants of the coming election seem inescapable, but her thoughts drift more often to her loved ones, both here and gone, the fragility and temporary nature of this one life we are given. Life, love, death, aging, politics, music, poetry, writers, reading, the economy, pollution, all these and more fill and fuel these pages. Some are filled with lovely thoughts, some with frustrations, and some with heartbreaking reminiscences. If you’ve read any of her former memoirs, you may remember of her penchant for including her photographs, ones that typically remind her of a time when someone she loved was there by her side, although there are many that are reminiscent of a place she visited. These things are not just ‘things,’ though, they are real moments in time, captured in some object whose significance may or may not be recognized by anyone else. Like a lullaby, they give her comfort. They are transportation back to that moment, allowing her to relive those feelings, those memories. ”I plodded up the stairs to my room reciting to myself, Once I was seven, soon I will be seventy. I was truly tired. Once I was seven, I repeated, sitting on the edge of the bed, still in my coat. “Our quiet rage gives us wings, the possibility to negotiate the gears winding backwards, uniting all time.” Years ago my brother sent me a box of books, and inside that box was a copy of her ‘Just Kids,’ and then when her ‘M Train’ came out, he sent that, as well – but after reading ‘Just Kids’ I would have bought my own copy, hoping that the magic was still there. I love the way she writes, and her personal stories that she shares. I didn’t think she could match her ‘Just Kids,’ and for some maybe she doesn’t, but I loved this as much, maybe just a smidgen more. I think for some it will be more relatable. ”…the trouble with dreaming is that we eventually wake up.” If you are not a reader who typically read the epilogue, do yourself a favour and make sure you read her final chapter, entitled A KIND OF EPILOGUE. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #130,975 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #55 in General Books & Reading #280 in Author Biographies #305 in Rock Band Biographies | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,829 Reviews | ## Images ![Year of the Monkey - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/810+kKzM9ML.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Stirs my soul. *by M***K on October 4, 2025* What can I say? I'm a fan of Patti Smith's work, be it music or literature. And yes, this is literature of the finest kind. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ”…the trouble with dreaming is that we eventually wake up.” *by C***S on November 23, 2019* ”Marcus Aurelius asks us to note the passing of time with open eyes. Ten thousand years or ten thousand days, nothing can stop time, or change the fact that I would be turning seventy in the Year of the Monkey. Seventy. Merely a number but one indicating the passing of a significant percentage of the allotted sand in an egg timer, with oneself the darn egg. The grains pour and I find myself missing the dead more than usual. I notice that I cry more when watching television, triggered by romance, a retiring detective shot in the back while staring into the sea, a weary father lifting his infant from a crib. I notice that my own tears burn my eyes, that I am no longer a fast runner and that my sense of time seems to be accelerating.” This often reads as though it were written under a fever-dream and other times the random musings of the poet ”…plucking inspiration from the erratic air”, all the while trying to focus on the things which are established, and her memories of the years gone by. At this point in her life, she has just celebrated her 69th birthday, is contemplating turning seventy in the coming year, concerned over two friends whose health was rapidly fading, the then-coming election, all while drinking lots of coffee, and mourning those who have passed on, and feeling helpless toward those merely hanging on. ”There was work to be done, concerts to perform, lives to live, however carefully.” And the lives of two men that she loved would be gone before another year arrived. ”The wooden bed in the corner of the room seems so far away, and all is but an intermission, of small and tender consequences.” And as the new year starts winding toward the next one, the chants of the coming election seem inescapable, but her thoughts drift more often to her loved ones, both here and gone, the fragility and temporary nature of this one life we are given. Life, love, death, aging, politics, music, poetry, writers, reading, the economy, pollution, all these and more fill and fuel these pages. Some are filled with lovely thoughts, some with frustrations, and some with heartbreaking reminiscences. If you’ve read any of her former memoirs, you may remember of her penchant for including her photographs, ones that typically remind her of a time when someone she loved was there by her side, although there are many that are reminiscent of a place she visited. These things are not just ‘things,’ though, they are real moments in time, captured in some object whose significance may or may not be recognized by anyone else. Like a lullaby, they give her comfort. They are transportation back to that moment, allowing her to relive those feelings, those memories. ”I plodded up the stairs to my room reciting to myself, Once I was seven, soon I will be seventy. I was truly tired. Once I was seven, I repeated, sitting on the edge of the bed, still in my coat. “Our quiet rage gives us wings, the possibility to negotiate the gears winding backwards, uniting all time.” Years ago my brother sent me a box of books, and inside that box was a copy of her ‘Just Kids,’ and then when her ‘M Train’ came out, he sent that, as well – but after reading ‘Just Kids’ I would have bought my own copy, hoping that the magic was still there. I love the way she writes, and her personal stories that she shares. I didn’t think she could match her ‘Just Kids,’ and for some maybe she doesn’t, but I loved this as much, maybe just a smidgen more. I think for some it will be more relatable. ”…the trouble with dreaming is that we eventually wake up.” If you are not a reader who typically read the epilogue, do yourself a favour and make sure you read her final chapter, entitled A KIND OF EPILOGUE. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Get inside the creative mind of an original and innovative artist *by R***A on August 3, 2020* Patti Smith is one of the most creative artists of our time. Her new book, "Year of the Monkey," is further testimony to the inventive mind of an original and innovative virtuoso. As she drifts up and down the Pacific Coast, and back and forth across the country, a “diary” of her thoughts becomes transformed into text, giving readers an intimate look into her mind and her thinking—Patti Smith about to turn seventy. Not only is the concept and the prose unique, but the grammatical and stylistic choices she has made with the book are singularly distinctive. Not sure I’ve seen another book like this since the days of the 1950s modernist writing. (Richard C. Brusca: author of "In the Land of the Feathered Serpert" and about two-dozen other books) --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.kg/products/224417436-year-of-the-monkey](https://www.desertcart.kg/products/224417436-year-of-the-monkey) --- *Product available on Desertcart Kyrgyzstan* *Store origin: KG* *Last updated: 2026-06-14*