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David Bowie’s Top 100 Books (2013)

62 points by samclemens 11y ago

louhike 11y ago
The complete list can be found here http://www.davidbowie.com/news/bowie-s-top-100-books-complete-list-52061 http://www.davidbowie.com/news/bowie-s-top-100-books-complet... as explained in the comments. It has the 100 books whereas there are only 75 of them here.
auggierose 11y ago
So he didn't seem to like Sci-Fi too much; only two standards (1984, Clockwork Orange) among the top 100 as far as I can see.
- bshimmin 11y ago
  Well, he starred in The Man Who Fell to Earth, so does that make up for it?
- ideonexus 11y ago
  It's a great reading list, but I was also surprised not to find Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" in there. I had always assumed his song "Oh! You Pretty Things" was about that book. While the book and the song share themes, they are apparently independent. I did like this passage I found online about the themes though [1]: The resonance of “Oh! You Pretty Things” comes from how it uses these Nietzschean SF trappings as a metaphor for how a generation regards its successor with longing, fear and resentment (never more so than with the so-called Greatest Generation and their children the Boomers), or, even closer to home, how a parent can regard his or her children. Once you become a parent, you lose precedence in your own life—your own needs and desires are shunted aside, and you spend years as servant and guide to your replacement, who will go on to have richer experiences and greater opportunities than you ever had (that’s if you’re lucky). More bluntly, once you reproduce, your genetic purpose is fulfilled and all that remains is age, redundancy and death. [1] https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/oh-you-pretty-things/ https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/oh-you-pretty-th...
bshimmin 11y ago
There are some corkers here. Wonderful to imagine Bowie reading The Leopard (I wonder if he enjoyed the masterful Visconti film of it, too).
dschiptsov 11y ago
No Sartre or Camous? No Hundred Years of Solitude? No Pamuk? No Henry Miller? No Nabokov's "Dar", no "Ishmael", no " Stepenwolf", no "Dorian Gray", no "Brave New World"? No "mockingbird", no "Atlas", no motorcycle maintenance? No dr.Zhivago? What kind of a list it is?
- kunai 11y ago
  It's self-explanatory -- it's just list of the books ann acclaimed intellectual and magnificent artist loved. It's not a reference book list for philosophy majors.
- replicant2020 11y ago
  No Thomas Pynchon? No David Foster Wallace? No Heidegger? No Kundera? No Kerouac? Oh what a terrible person, to have not read everything in an arbitrary list of authors and books that I feel like name dropping.
  - dschiptsov 11y ago
    "On the road" is there. I forgot Philip K. Dick and Yukio Mishima! Oh, sorry, because it is His list it must be exceptional.
    - sambeau 11y ago
      His list is interesting because he is an interesting person. He is also a highly original and highly influential person. Trying to get-to-know what his influences are is a (probably flawed) but understandable exercise. I think it would be fair to argue that he, himself, was an exceptional character. It's very human to want to try to understand exceptional people. Is that wrong of us?
      - dschiptsov 11y ago
        Where did I argued against his personality? I just considered this particular list being rather poor and provided some suggestions.
brianzelip 11y ago
Interesting to see him studying traditions he stepped into. Like African American origins of rock, sort of starting from Richard Wright to soul and rock histories. I thought J. R. R. Tolkien would have been in there. Been listening to a lot of his stuff, focussing on the sort of literary thread about his Berlin era that you can read about on his wikipedia page[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie#1976.E2.80.9379:_Berlin_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie#1976.E2.80.9379:_B...
gPphX 11y ago
by author: Beano (comic, ’50s) Private Eye (satirical magazine, ’60s – ’80s) Raw (comic, ’80s) Viz (comic, early ’80s) Paris Review, The - Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews edited by Malcolm Cowley Ackroyd, Peter - Hawksmoor Alighieri, Dante - Inferno Amis, Martin - Money Baldwin, James - Fire Next Time, The Barnes, Julian - Flaubert’s Parrot Bellow, Saul - Herzog Braine, John - Room At The Top Broyard, Anatole - Kafka Was The Rage Bulgakov, Mikhail - Master And Margarita, The Bulwer-Lytton, Edward - Zanoni Burgess, Anthony - A Clockwork Orange Burgess, Anthony - Earthly Powers Cage, John - Silence: Lectures And Writing Camus, Albert - Stranger, The Capote, Truman - In Cold Blood Carter, Angela - Nights At The Circus Chabon, Michael - Wonder Boys Chatwin, Bruce - Songlines, The Cohn, Nik - Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock Cork, Richard - David Bomberg Crane, Hart - Bridge, The Danto, Arthur C. - Beyond The Brillo Box DeLillo, Don - White Noise Diaz, Junot - Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, The Döblin, Alfred - Berlin Alexanderplatz Dos Passos, John - 42nd Parallel, The Edwards, Frank - Strange People Elliot, T.S. - Waste Land, The Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying Figes, Orlando - A People’s Tragedy Fitzgerald, F. Scott - Great Gatsby, The Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary Friedrich, Otto - Before The Deluge Gillete, Charlie - Sound Of The City: The Rise Of Rock And Roll, The Ginzburg, Eugenia - Journey Into The Whirlwind Guralnick, Peter - Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The Southern Dream Of Freedom Hall, James A. - Halls Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art Harding, Douglass - On Having No Head Hirshey, Gerri - Nowhere To Run The Story Of Soul Music Hitchens, Christopher - Trial Of Henry Kissinger, The Homer - Iliad Isherwood, Christopher - Mr. Norris Changes Trains Jacoby, Susan - Age Of American Unreason, The Jaynes, Julian - Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind, The Kerouac, Jack - On The Road Kidd, David - All The Emperor’s Horses Koestler, Arthur - Darkness At Noon Laing, R. D. - Divided Self, The Di Lampedusa, Giusseppe - Leopard, The Larson, Nella - Passing Lautréamont, Comte de - Maldodor Lawrence, D.H. - Lady Chatterly’s Lover Lebowitz, Fran - Metropolitan Life Lévi, Eliphas - Transcendental Magic, Its Doctine and Ritual Lewis, Wyndham - Blast Marcus, Greil - Mystery Train McEwan, Ian - In Between The Sheets Milligan, Spike - Puckoon Mishima, Yukio - Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, The Mitford, Jessica - American Way Of Death, The Nabokov, Vladimir - Lolita Norman, Howard - Bird Artist, The Norris, Frank - McTeague O’Hara, Frank - Selected Poems Orwell, George - 1984 Orwell, George - Inside The Whale And Other Essays Packard, Vance - Hidden Persuaders, The Pagels, Elaine - Gnostic Gospels, The Paglia, Camille - Sexual Personae: Art And Decadence From Nefertiti To Emily Dickinson Petry, Ann - Street, The di Pirajno, Alberto Denti - A Grave For A Dolphin Priestley, J.B. - English Journey Rechy, John - City Of Night Sadecky, Peter - Octobriana And The Russian Underground Saunders, Ed - Tales Of Beatnik Glory Savage, Jon - Teenage Selby, Hubert Jr. - Last Exit To Brooklyn Spark, Muriel - Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, The Steiner, George - In Bluebeard’s Castle Stoppard, Tom - Coast Of Utopia, The Sylvester, David - Interviews With Francis Bacon Thomson, Rupert - Insult, The Thurman, Wallace - Infants Of The Spring Toole, John Kennedy - A Confederacy Of Dunces Waterhouse, Keith - Billy Liar Waters, Sarah - Fingersmith Waugh, Evelyn - Vile Bodies Weschler, Lawrence - Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonders West, Nathanael - Day Of The Locust, The White, Charles - Life And Times Of Little Richard, The Wilson, Colin - Outsider, The Wolf, Christa - Quest For Christa T, The Wright, Richard - Black Boy Yokoo, Tadanori - Tadanori Yokoo Zinn, Howard - A People’s History Of The United States

62 points by samclemens 11y ago

The complete list can be found here http://www.davidbowie.com/news/bowie-s-top-100-books-complete-list-52061 http://www.davidbowie.com/news/bowie-s-top-100-books-complet... as explained in the comments. It has the 100 books whereas there are only 75 of them here.

auggierose 11y ago

So he didn't seem to like Sci-Fi too much; only two standards (1984, Clockwork Orange) among the top 100 as far as I can see.

bshimmin 11y ago
Well, he starred in The Man Who Fell to Earth, so does that make up for it?
ideonexus 11y ago
It's a great reading list, but I was also surprised not to find Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" in there. I had always assumed his song "Oh! You Pretty Things" was about that book. While the book and the song share themes, they are apparently independent. I did like this passage I found online about the themes though [1]: The resonance of “Oh! You Pretty Things” comes from how it uses these Nietzschean SF trappings as a metaphor for how a generation regards its successor with longing, fear and resentment (never more so than with the so-called Greatest Generation and their children the Boomers), or, even closer to home, how a parent can regard his or her children. Once you become a parent, you lose precedence in your own life—your own needs and desires are shunted aside, and you spend years as servant and guide to your replacement, who will go on to have richer experiences and greater opportunities than you ever had (that’s if you’re lucky). More bluntly, once you reproduce, your genetic purpose is fulfilled and all that remains is age, redundancy and death. [1] https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/oh-you-pretty-things/ https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/oh-you-pretty-th...

bshimmin 11y ago

There are some corkers here. Wonderful to imagine Bowie reading The Leopard (I wonder if he enjoyed the masterful Visconti film of it, too).

dschiptsov 11y ago

No Sartre or Camous? No Hundred Years of Solitude? No Pamuk? No Henry Miller? No Nabokov's "Dar", no "Ishmael", no " Stepenwolf", no "Dorian Gray", no "Brave New World"? No "mockingbird", no "Atlas", no motorcycle maintenance? No dr.Zhivago? What kind of a list it is?

kunai 11y ago
It's self-explanatory -- it's just list of the books ann acclaimed intellectual and magnificent artist loved. It's not a reference book list for philosophy majors.
replicant2020 11y ago
No Thomas Pynchon? No David Foster Wallace? No Heidegger? No Kundera? No Kerouac? Oh what a terrible person, to have not read everything in an arbitrary list of authors and books that I feel like name dropping.
- dschiptsov 11y ago
  "On the road" is there. I forgot Philip K. Dick and Yukio Mishima! Oh, sorry, because it is His list it must be exceptional.
  - sambeau 11y ago
    His list is interesting because he is an interesting person. He is also a highly original and highly influential person. Trying to get-to-know what his influences are is a (probably flawed) but understandable exercise. I think it would be fair to argue that he, himself, was an exceptional character. It's very human to want to try to understand exceptional people. Is that wrong of us?
    - dschiptsov 11y ago
      Where did I argued against his personality? I just considered this particular list being rather poor and provided some suggestions.

brianzelip 11y ago

Interesting to see him studying traditions he stepped into. Like African American origins of rock, sort of starting from Richard Wright to soul and rock histories. I thought J. R. R. Tolkien would have been in there. Been listening to a lot of his stuff, focussing on the sort of literary thread about his Berlin era that you can read about on his wikipedia page[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie#1976.E2.80.9379:_Berlin_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie#1976.E2.80.9379:_B...

gPphX 11y ago

by author: Beano (comic, ’50s) Private Eye (satirical magazine, ’60s – ’80s) Raw (comic, ’80s) Viz (comic, early ’80s) Paris Review, The - Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews edited by Malcolm Cowley Ackroyd, Peter - Hawksmoor Alighieri, Dante - Inferno Amis, Martin - Money Baldwin, James - Fire Next Time, The Barnes, Julian - Flaubert’s Parrot Bellow, Saul - Herzog Braine, John - Room At The Top Broyard, Anatole - Kafka Was The Rage Bulgakov, Mikhail - Master And Margarita, The Bulwer-Lytton, Edward - Zanoni Burgess, Anthony - A Clockwork Orange Burgess, Anthony - Earthly Powers Cage, John - Silence: Lectures And Writing Camus, Albert - Stranger, The Capote, Truman - In Cold Blood Carter, Angela - Nights At The Circus Chabon, Michael - Wonder Boys Chatwin, Bruce - Songlines, The Cohn, Nik - Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock Cork, Richard - David Bomberg Crane, Hart - Bridge, The Danto, Arthur C. - Beyond The Brillo Box DeLillo, Don - White Noise Diaz, Junot - Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, The Döblin, Alfred - Berlin Alexanderplatz Dos Passos, John - 42nd Parallel, The Edwards, Frank - Strange People Elliot, T.S. - Waste Land, The Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying Figes, Orlando - A People’s Tragedy Fitzgerald, F. Scott - Great Gatsby, The Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary Friedrich, Otto - Before The Deluge Gillete, Charlie - Sound Of The City: The Rise Of Rock And Roll, The Ginzburg, Eugenia - Journey Into The Whirlwind Guralnick, Peter - Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The Southern Dream Of Freedom Hall, James A. - Halls Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art Harding, Douglass - On Having No Head Hirshey, Gerri - Nowhere To Run The Story Of Soul Music Hitchens, Christopher - Trial Of Henry Kissinger, The Homer - Iliad Isherwood, Christopher - Mr. Norris Changes Trains Jacoby, Susan - Age Of American Unreason, The Jaynes, Julian - Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind, The Kerouac, Jack - On The Road Kidd, David - All The Emperor’s Horses Koestler, Arthur - Darkness At Noon Laing, R. D. - Divided Self, The Di Lampedusa, Giusseppe - Leopard, The Larson, Nella - Passing Lautréamont, Comte de - Maldodor Lawrence, D.H. - Lady Chatterly’s Lover Lebowitz, Fran - Metropolitan Life Lévi, Eliphas - Transcendental Magic, Its Doctine and Ritual Lewis, Wyndham - Blast Marcus, Greil - Mystery Train McEwan, Ian - In Between The Sheets Milligan, Spike - Puckoon Mishima, Yukio - Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, The Mitford, Jessica - American Way Of Death, The Nabokov, Vladimir - Lolita Norman, Howard - Bird Artist, The Norris, Frank - McTeague O’Hara, Frank - Selected Poems Orwell, George - 1984 Orwell, George - Inside The Whale And Other Essays Packard, Vance - Hidden Persuaders, The Pagels, Elaine - Gnostic Gospels, The Paglia, Camille - Sexual Personae: Art And Decadence From Nefertiti To Emily Dickinson Petry, Ann - Street, The di Pirajno, Alberto Denti - A Grave For A Dolphin Priestley, J.B. - English Journey Rechy, John - City Of Night Sadecky, Peter - Octobriana And The Russian Underground Saunders, Ed - Tales Of Beatnik Glory Savage, Jon - Teenage Selby, Hubert Jr. - Last Exit To Brooklyn Spark, Muriel - Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, The Steiner, George - In Bluebeard’s Castle Stoppard, Tom - Coast Of Utopia, The Sylvester, David - Interviews With Francis Bacon Thomson, Rupert - Insult, The Thurman, Wallace - Infants Of The Spring Toole, John Kennedy - A Confederacy Of Dunces Waterhouse, Keith - Billy Liar Waters, Sarah - Fingersmith Waugh, Evelyn - Vile Bodies Weschler, Lawrence - Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonders West, Nathanael - Day Of The Locust, The White, Charles - Life And Times Of Little Richard, The Wilson, Colin - Outsider, The Wolf, Christa - Quest For Christa T, The Wright, Richard - Black Boy Yokoo, Tadanori - Tadanori Yokoo Zinn, Howard - A People’s History Of The United States