The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham news and links for Monday, June 13

good morning and happy monday, hoddlers.

Saturdays and Sundays are typically when your hoddler-in-chief gets the bulk of his reading done. Few things make me happier than lounging in a chair, sipping on a coffee and pouring through pages of the latest print I have discovered.

“And what is it you like reading?” people inevitably ask me when I broach the subject. A little bit of everything, is my typical answer. Not in the cliched sense that I like all things (I don’t). But I love to explore and study different writing styles, dive into different subjects and adventures and let myself be captivated in different ways.

I most recently finished a book about the matsutake mushroom - What a Mushroom Lives For - and a challenge to the typical “survival of the fittest” doctrine and theory of competition amongst living things. A fascinating, if slightly dry, read.

And now? A memoir from Patti Smith: Just Kids.

I never explored Smith’s career trajectory. I always assorted her with Bob Dylan, and I got more curious when I had a better understand of the New York Punk scene and sound. Still, Smith was an exception in that her writing was not like anyone else’s.

Roughly one-third of the way into Just Kids, I still consider her to be a writer nee poet first. The book is about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe - a photographer best known for his documenting the gay male scene in New York - and presumably how their relationship grew as they each beecame famous.

I am a little over 100 pages into the book and neither Smith (still a worker at a bookstore) and Mapplethorpe (an amateur photog) are near their primes.

It’s a tremendous book. And reading this makes me appreciate Patti Smith’s songwriting even more. I don’t know yet how she went from book clerk to “Patti Smith”, but I’m eager to find out.

Are there any books you have taken a liking to lately? Drop them below! Need a book suggestion? Give your community a shout!

Fitzie’s track of the day: Chapstick, by COIN

And now for your links:

Alasdair Gold discusses Tottenham’s transfer links in his latest video

Darwin Nunez completes transfer to Liverpool

Andrea Pirlo named manager of Turkish side Fatih Karagumruk

EFL chief: ‘Urgent proactive action’ needed to secure Derby County sale