Written by Pages Editorial.

To live like Patti Smith is to read like Patti Smith. Shortlist is a series by pages dedicated to the books that shape the people who shape us, your favourites’ favourites. Patti Smith’s Shortlist is necessarily vast. Below is a carefully compiled record of the books she has named as influential throughout her life and career. For a poet and writer whose work has left an indelible mark on generations, this is the reading that echoes through her own.

Click through to read the full synopsis of each book on bookshop.org

• The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse
  One of the most important books of Smith’s life, often reread. Its meditation on intellect, spirituality, and devotion to art mirrors her own creative ethos.
  
  

• Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse
  A shorter, mystical work that reflects Smith’s attraction to pilgrimage, memory, and artistic brotherhood.
  
  

• Villette by Charlotte Brontë
  A novel of solitude and emotional endurance that Smith has described as deeply affecting.
  
  

• Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
  Admired for its mythic scope, obsession, and moral intensity.
  
  

• Billy Budd by Herman Melville
  A powerful study of innocence, authority, and injustice.
  
  

• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  A novel Smith has recommended for its moral weight and psychological depth.
  
  

• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
  Valued for its exploration of human darkness and imperial conscience.
  
  

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  A foundational text for Smith, addressing creation, responsibility, and alienation.
  
  

• The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy
  A work she has admired for its clarity, moral urgency, and confrontation with mortality.
  
  

• Moments of Being by Virginia Woolf
  A book that reflects Smith’s interest in memory, consciousness, and interior life.
  
  

• The Waves by Virginia Woolf
  A lyrical exploration of time, identity, and voice that dissolves the boundary between inner and outer life.
  
  

• The Children’s Crusade by Marcel Schwob
  A haunting, lyrical historical work that aligns with Smith’s fascination with innocence, sacrifice, and myth.
  
  

• A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud
  Central to Smith’s artistic awakening; a declaration of rebellion and visionary intensity.
  
  

• Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud
  A poetic touchstone for Smith’s understanding of language as revelation.
  
  

• Ariel by Sylvia Plath
  A collection she has returned to for its emotional force and precision.
  
  

• Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath
  A stark, pared-down collection marked by restraint, clarity, and emotional winter.
  
  

• Howl by Allen Ginsberg
  A defining Beat work that reinforced Smith’s belief in poetry as a public, living act.
  
  

• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  Celebrated for its imagination, satire, and metaphysical daring.
  
  

• 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
  A contemporary novel Smith has praised as a major literary achievement of the twenty-first century.
  
  

• Amulet by Roberto Bolaño
  A haunting monologue devoted to poetry, memory, and endurance.
  
  

• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
  A modern favorite admired for its dreamlike structure and metaphysical reach.
  
  

• Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
  On her recommended reading list.
  
  

• Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
  A melancholic continuation of Murakami’s surreal, metaphysical world.
  
  

• A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
  A playful, existential quest blending pop culture, mystery, and myth.
  
  

• An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira
  A brief, visionary novel reflecting Smith’s interest in art, obsession, and transformation.
  
  

• The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
  A childhood favorite Smith has called a “perfect book,” rich in moral testing and transformation.
  
  

• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  An early influence that nurtured her love of imagination and defiance.
  
  

• Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
  A formative childhood text centered on freedom, loss, and refusal to conform.
  
  

• Foxe’s Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
  A book from her childhood that left a lasting impression, reflecting her early exposure to suffering, faith, and endurance.
  
  

• The Bobbsey Twins and Uncle Wiggly (series)
  Among her earliest readings, marking the beginning of a lifelong devotion to books.

• Songs of Innocence by William Blake
  Appears on her Open Culture favourite books list.
  
  

• The Wild Boys by William S. Burroughs
  Listed among books she has admired.
  
  

• Wittgenstein’s Poker by David Edmonds and John Eidinow
  Included on earlier lists of her favourites.
  
  

• The Process by Brion Gysin
  A hallucinatory, ritualistic text exploring repetition and altered states.
  
  

• Cain’s Book by Alexander Trocchi
  A raw, confessional novel of addiction and alienation.
  
  

• Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
  A tragedy of pride, exile, and political violence.
  
  

• The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde
  A tender moral fable balancing beauty, sacrifice, and sorrow.
  
  

• The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
  A bleak, lyrical novel of dislocation and existential exposure.
  
  

• Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag
  A critical manifesto arguing for direct experience over imposed meaning.
  
  

• The Oblivion Seekers by Isabelle Eberhardt
  A restless, nomadic work steeped in spiritual yearning and self-erasure.
  
  

• The Women of Cairo by Gérard de Nerval
  A dreamlike travel narrative blending memory, desire, and mysticism.
  
  

• Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
  A feverish, tragic novel of addiction, guilt, and collapse.
  
  

• Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
  A grotesque satire of moral emptiness and social decay.
  
  

• The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
  A fragmented meditation on solitude, identity, and inner exile.
  
  

• The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch
  A dense, visionary meditation on art, death, and transcendence.
  
  

• Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters by J. D. Salinger
  A quietly luminous portrait of family, memory, and absence.
  
  

• Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
  A philosophical dialogue on faith, authenticity, and spiritual crisis.
  
  

• A Night of Serious Drinking by René Daumal
  A surreal philosophical quest disguised as a drunken odyssey.
  
  

• Swann in Love by Marcel Proust
  A concentrated study of love, jealousy, and obsession.
  
  

• A Happy Death by Albert Camus
  An early exploration of freedom, happiness, and mortality.
  
  

• The First Man by Albert Camus
  A posthumous, intimate reflection on childhood, exile, and identity.
  
  

• Big Sur by Jack Kerouac
  A raw reckoning with fame, breakdown, and solitude.
  
  

• Anything by H. P. Lovecraft
  Cosmic horror transforming dread into mythic scale.
  
  

• Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald
  Melancholic narratives merging memory, history, and wandering.
  
  

• The Thief’s Journal by Jean Genet
  Smith said it had major influence on her work.
  
  

• The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin
  A monumental collage of modernity, memory, and cultural ruin.
  
  

• Poet in New York by Federico García Lorca
  A surreal lament for modern alienation and spiritual loss.
  
  

• The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll
  A sharp critique of media violence and moral hysteria.
  
  

• The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola
  A folkloric, dreamlike journey rooted in oral tradition.
  
  

• Ice by Anna Kavan
  A glacial, apocalyptic vision of obsession and collapse.
  
  

• The Divine Proportion by H. E. Huntley
  A meditation on mathematical beauty and cosmic harmony.
  
  

• Nadja by André Breton
  A surrealist exploration of chance, love, and madness.
  
  

• Anthology by Antonin Artaud
  A visceral confrontation with language, body, and pain.
  
  

• Letters from Iceland by W. H. Auden
  A playful, observant blend of poetry, travel, and place.
  
  

• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
  A ferocious novel of love, revenge, and elemental passion.
  
  

• The Petting Zoo by Jim Carroll
  A raw portrait of youth, violence, and vulnerability.
  
  

• Orphée by Jean Cocteau
  A poetic meditation on myth, art, and death.
  
  

• The Divine Comedy by Dante
  A spiritual epic mapping sin, redemption, and transcendence.
  
  

• No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
  A devastating confession of alienation and self-erasure.
  
  

• The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai
  A portrait of cultural collapse and personal despair.
  
  

• The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
  A formative immersion in logic, mystery, and narrative drive.
  
  

• Four Major Plays by Henrik Ibsen
  Foundational dramas of moral conflict and individual freedom.
  
  

• The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck
  A symbolist fable about happiness and perception.
  
  

• Black Spring by Henry Miller
  A raw, autobiographical blend of lyricism and provocation.
  
  

• The Beach Café by Mohammed Mrabet
  A spare, oral-rooted narrative of Moroccan life.
  
  

• The Confusions of Young Törless by Robert Musil
  A disturbing psychological study of cruelty and moral awakening.
  
  

• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
  A dazzling, disturbing novel of obsession and language.
  
  

• Nabokov’s Butterflies by Vladimir Nabokov
  A testament to devotion, beauty, and precision.
  
  

• A Dog of Flanders by Ouida
  A tragic childhood tale of loyalty and sacrifice.
  
  

• After-Dinner Declarations by Nicanor Parra
  Anti-poetry dismantling literary seriousness.
  
  

• After Nature by W. G. Sebald
  A hybrid meditation on biography, history, and loss.
  
  

• Hawk Moon by Sam Shepard
  A hallucinatory American road vision.
  
  

• Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney
  A beloved childhood novel of family and resilience.
  
  

• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
  A coming-of-age story rooted in poverty and hope.
  
  

• The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
  A social satire exploring class and identity.
  
  

• The Little Lame Prince by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
  A Victorian fairy tale of imagination and transcendence.
  
  

• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein
  A stark philosophical inquiry into language and reality.
  
  

• The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera by Bertram David Wolfe
  A vivid portrait of art, politics, and creative excess.