Bowie's Bookshelf

The Hundred Books That Changed David Bowie's Life

By: John O'Connell

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Three years before David Bowie died, he shared a list of 100 books that changed his life. His choices span fiction and nonfiction, literary and irreverent, and include timeless classics alongside eyebrow-raising obscurities.

In 100 short essays, music journalist John O'Connell studies each book on Bowie's list and contextualizes it in the artist's life and work. How did the power imbued in a single suit of armor in The Iliad impact a man who loved costumes, shifting identity, and the siren song of the alter-ego? How did The Gnostic Gospels inform Bowie's own hazy personal cosmology? How did the poems of T. S. Eliot and Frank O'Hara, the fiction of Vladimir Nabokov and Anthony Burgess, the comics of The Beano and The Viz, and the groundbreaking politics of James Baldwin influence Bowie's lyrics, his sound, his artistic outlook? How did the 100 books on this list influence one of the most influential artists of a generation?

Heartfelt, analytical, and totally original, Bowie's Bookshelf is one part epic reading guide and one part biography of a music legend.

©2019 John O'Connell (P)2020 Tantor

Oddly unsatisfying

I was reminded of the joke that opens the film "Annie Hall", where one woman complains "The food in this restaurant is terrible." To which her friend replies, "Yeah, and such small portions."

That describes this book in a nutshell. As might be expected as a fan of David Bowie, I was intrigued by the insight into what works influenced him. Unfortunately, what we are given is the author's second hand pseudo-intellectual artistic pomposity, that Bowie himself, and his public personae, gloriously and thankfully rose above.

Out of the 100, there are a dozen or so entries that are worth the effort, and might have invited a deeper dive, including Saul Bellow's "Herzog", John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces", Albert Camus' "The Stanger", and Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" . But virtually all of the entries are treated with the same clipped mini-report style, leaving the resulting takeaway a mile wide and an inch deep. I suspect the purpose of this book was as much for the author to show his erudition on literature, as it was a showcase for Bowie's reading interests. 3 stars out of respect for Bowie himself. Get it on a Daily Deal or 2-for-1 special.

Speculative in some ways, but interesting

It has a nice introduction, then uses Bowie’s own book list as a basis for the author to provide some history, context, and actual links of the books to Bowie. Vance’s narration is as usual wonderful. I liked it much more than I anticipated.

mildly interesting

good narrator. the sexual debauchery was rife, even for a bowie book, and the left wing politics were more abundant that most material covering bowie. as sometimes happens with bowie, I'm left longing for more about his artistic brilliance, less about the perversion he escaped in his more mature years. still, there were some interesting insights into what Bowie found in these books. for a diehard fan, I'd say give it a try