Patti Smith wins National Book Award

Patti Smith has taken the National Book Award for nonfiction home on Wednesday night for her book ‘Just Kids’.

The book tells the story of her relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe and details a time when New York was the hip and swinging place to be.

“I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf,” she said at the ceremony while accepting her award. “Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.”

The National Book Awards have been running in New York since 1950 with the goal of “enhancing the public’s awareness of exceptional books written by fellow Americans, and to increase the popularity of reading in general.”