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    Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie's Life
    Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie's Life
    Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie's Life
    Audiobook6 hours

    Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie's Life

    Written by John O'Connell

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJan 28, 2020
    ISBN9781494548148
    Author

    John O'Connell

    John O’Connell is a former Senior Editor at Time Out and music columnist for The Face. He is now freelance writing mainly for The Times and The Guardian. He interviewed David Bowie in New York in 2002. He lives in south London.  

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    Reviews for Bowie's Bookshelf

    3.5/5

    53 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Like, I suspect, most of the people who frequent this site, I'm always interested in what people are reading, particularly when they're a variegated generalist like Bowie was. Very much the sort of book you dip in from time to time, and which tries to link books up to specific songs by the man.
    • 1/5
      I like books, I like Bowie. The only good thing about this book is the cover image of Bowie looking hot while reading a book. Seems like the author isn't even literate.
    • 3/5
      Really great for a list of interesting books to read, but too much speculation as to how these books might have actually influenced Bowie.
    • 4/5
      5. Bowie's Bookshelf by John O'Connell. This is a list put together for a V&A Museum exhibit of 100 books that Bowie felt were the most important or influential, not necessarily his favorites. The author of this book, O'Connell, met Bowie just once and describes his nervousness of that interview and Bowie's kindness.Each book is given two or three pages, with background about the book and what was happening in Bowie's life when it was published or when he read it. As Bowie did many book reviews on Barnes & Noble's site and he worked on the exhibit, we have his opinions about those books. There's even information about which books may have been the inspiration for certain Bowie songs, and each book discussed has a recommendation for which Bowie song to accompany it, and one extra book to follow with. I love books that recommend other books like a bread trail.What I didn't love was the author frequently taking license when discussing a book or experience Bowie apparently never spoke openly about, so we have phrases such as "he must have been excited" and "surely he felt..." sprinkled throughout. When discussing a certain sociology book published in 2008, he creates a jarring entry by suddenly turning it into his own pulpit on current American politics (this book was published in 2019) and claiming to know what Bowie, who passed in 2015, would have felt, then going on to list all the ways in which Americans are stupid.There is a lot of information here about Bowie's life, his family, his marriage to Iman and his romances and personas of his career. It's unusual sizing and bright red cover with a picture of Bowie is striking.
    • 5/5
      Before I even get into my musing about this book, I have a few points relating to the front cover I need to get off my chest:1. I absolutely love this cover. My lovely pal bought me this recently for my birthday, and I can't stop looking at it. This picture doesn't do it justice - it's such lovely quality, with the photo of Bowie indented and a really nice silver font. I'm still looking at it as I'm writing this. Which brings me on to point 2....2. Now it's not shown on the version in this photo, but why, oh why, did Bloomsbury decide that a book on Bowie and his books (which surely sells itself to its target audience) needed a quote from Caitlin Moran of all people smack in the top centre of the cover? No. Just no. What credibility does Moran possibly add to a book on Bowie? Just because she worked on a music magazine as a teenager for 5 minutes does not make her an authority figure on a book relating to Bowie. Ever. I know she's a clever writer, but she still manages to come across as a smart-arse precocious child despite being a woman in her 40s, so the haloed ground of Bowie is OFF LIMITS. I'm therefore going to squint from now on and pretend it's actually Iggy Pop that's quoted instead.3. With regards to the title, is it correct grammar to say 'The Hundred Literary Heroes....'? Shouldn't it be 'A Hundred...' or 'One Hundred....' or 'The One Hundred..'? 'The Hundred' is jarring with me every time I read it. Perhaps I'm wrong - can someone please clarify?Now, onto the book. As the introduction informs us, as part of the V & A Museum's David Bowie Is exhibition they collated this list of the 100 hundred books Bowie continued to be the most important or influential in his life. A huge reader throughout his life, these weren't necessarily his most favourite books, which in a way makes the list all the more interesting and insightful about how he viewed himself, or wanted to be seen.John O'Connell spends 2 or 3 pages on each book, giving a bit of background on what the book's about and theorising on what may have made the book important to Bowie. Much of it is no doubt fabricated on well-researched guesswork, but nonetheless - it's fascinating stuff, and for a Bowie fan and book lover it works incredibly well.For one, it gives some really interesting insights into influences at the different stages of his career, a huge and varied spectrum ranging from beatnik subculture to modern art to dystopia to Little Richard. Whether you like Bowie's music or not (and if you don't, we need a whole other discussion on that sometime, as I think Bowie has at least one song for everyone), he was nothing short of a musical and theatrical genius, a chameleon who reinvented himself and musical genres time and time again. That reinvention was not down to lucky happenstance, but rather was the creative output of a man who gave serious intellectual consideration to books, music, history and spirituality, drawing hugely on these vastly varied influences for everything from his lyrics to his image to the theatrical spectacle of his performances.All that aside, even if you aren't a Bowie fan (again, we need to talk), as book addicts we all love a good book list, and this one is excellent. I expected a snapshot from the 1,001 list of books, but whilst it's peppered with a number of classics there were so many titles and authors that are completely new to me. Many have gone onto my already heaving wish list, but even those belonging to genres I'm not especially into were fascinating to read about, not just in the context of Bowie's interest in them but also because many of them were completely off-the-wall. Each book reviewed ends with a suggested Bowie song to listen to while reading the book (I'm never going to do that, but it's a cute idea), and a 'if you like this, try....' additional book recommendation. I spent nearly as much time on Amazon reviewing the books mentioned as I did reading the book.4.5 stars - Bowie and a book on books? If Carlsberg did books...
    • 3/5
      A compilation and highlights of 100 books that were favorites of the rock star legend David Bowie. I was frankly surprised that he was such and avid reader. The other surprise was the wide range of subjects and topics he was in to. Much spilled over into his creative side of which we are much grateful.
    • 4/5
      Bowie’s Bookshelf by John O’Connell is a 2019 Gallery Books publication.Because reading is, among much else, an escape—into other people, other perspectives, other consciousnesses. It takes you out of yourself, only to put you back there infinitely enriched.This is such a cool little book! I won a copy of this book from a Goodreads giveaway and was smitten with it the instant I laid eyes on it.Book people tend to like other book people, and Bowie should get a nod of approval from voracious readers, even if you are more of a casual fan, because -as his son, Duncan, has pointed out, he was a ‘beast of a reader’. In 2013, David drew up a list of a hundred books that had influenced him the most.I had never seen or read his list before now. Naturally, I was very curious to see what books might have influenced someone as diverse as David Bowie. However, I was a little worried that I might not know any of the books on the list. I had imagined David Bowie’s taste in reading material would differ vastly from my own simple taste.However, I was pleasantly surprised by how many books on the list that I recognized. That doesn’t mean I’ve read them, just that I’d at least heard of them. In truth, I’ve only read three books on his list. But I plan to add more than a handful of them to MY list.Naturally, Bowie was well read and had a wide range of interests. The list itself is very telling. What John O’Connell has done here, is to write a brief composition about each book, speculating on how or why it may have made an impression on Bowie.One would have to know Bowie pretty well, I’d think, to assume such a task, but the author did an admirable job, in my opinion. Since I’ve only read three of the books, I can’t really speak to how close to the mark O’Connell’s theories were, but it was fun to read his hypothesis, even if a few of them were a bit odd. Sometimes, the influence is very clear, though, and I had a few “a ha” moments while reading these essays.There were some interesting tidbits about Bowie sprinkled throughout as well- including how he traveled by train, never in airplanes, and carried with him an entire trunk full of books, neatly arranged.The author also gives readers a suggested Bowie tune to listen to while reading each specific title on the list.I thought this book was unique and original, and is one that Bowie fans will relish, and book lovers will cherish. The book is insightful and informative, maybe a little nostalgic and poignant, but also really fun too!
    • 5/5
      Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie's Life from John O'Connell is a wonderful book on several levels.For Bowie fans this takes Bowie's list of the 100 most influential (not necessarily favorite) books on his life and offers some contextualization with Bowie's life. There is certainly some educated guesses about exactly what each book may have meant or how it influenced his music, but for the most part the explanations make sense. Of course, without knowing from Bowie himself, it is mostly conjecture. But even that is fun and enlightening. If Bowie put a work on this list it likely has some trace in his artistic output and O'Connell makes a good faith effort to tease out the possibilities.For ravenous readers or lit majors, the list is interesting in and of itself. The books are not limited in either topic or complexity. Most readers will likely have read no more than half of these books. I read quite a bit and have for almost 60 years and I have only read 32 of them. Some of these I still have no desire to read but the fact Bowie thought so highly of these has convinced me to read a number of the ones I haven't. O'Connell doesn't so much give a synopsis of each book, I doubt he has read all of them himself, but he does offer enough about each book to make the connection to Bowie's work. As such, there aren't major spoilers but there are also no in depth analyses either. Which is probably for the best.For people who fall into both categories this book offers a glimpse into what helped to make Bowie into who he was and enough background on the books to couple with your own knowledge to make, perhaps, additional connections. Everyone finds different ways into the music they like, so while O'Connell certainly offers interesting avenues into the music through these books you may well find more. Or at least ways that speak more specifically to how you understand the music. This is not, and does not pretend to be, a definitive analysis of all connections between the books and the music. It does, however, offer a great first step or two, from which we can find our own paths forward.I think there is enough here to make this a good read for not only the readers I mention above but even the casual readers who likes either literary lists and/or the interplay between different art forms and how they influence each other.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.