Did the world begin to collapse in 2016 because corporate greed reached its zenith as political courage reached its nadir, or because it was the Year of the Monkey in the Chinese zodiac? Mystic punk rocker Patti Smith investigates in Year of the Monkey. Listen, Patti Smith is a legend, her album Horses rules, and the writing here is good and full of a genuine curiosity about the world. But the book elicited two major responses from me: the occasional sagacious nod, and eye rolls that hit with concussive force. For Smith, the world's serendipitous events and strange associations seem to be little clues to the great detective story that is life, but they're also just errant equations that prove the inherent chaos of the world. The tension, then—charged with the grab-bag spirituality that characterizes so much boomer bullshit—is this: Will Smith find some sense of personal narrative closure in her life or will she eventually die feeling uncomfortable with the unknown? by Rich Smith