Take a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process of one of the most important musicians of all time. Here is a list of David Bowie's 100 favorite books. In addition to helping you get to know this popular rocker better, the list is also great as summer reading inspiration.
Artists express themselves through different media - some are most communicative through writing, others through singing, others through drawing, others through dance, etc. Good artists know that inspiration hides in all possible corners and that life should be lived wide and full. David Bowie for example, he was a passionate reader and also sought inspiration for music among letters. In 2013, they were curators of the exhibition David Bowie Is compiled a list his favorite books. You can view it here.
David Bowie's Top 100 “Must Read” Books…https://t.co/2jRmu49mFI#WorldBookDay pic.twitter.com/QeRqTFfW3N
— David Bowie Wonderworld (@bowieww) 2 March 2017
- Junot Diaz, The Short, Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao
- Anthony Burgess, A Hell's Orange
- Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
- Homer, Iliad
- Albert Camus, The Stranger
- Nella Larsen, Passing
- Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus
- Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margaret
- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
- Arthur Köstler, Eclipse at Noon
- John Kennedy Toole, Conspiracy of Fools
- George Orwell, 1984
- Don DeLillo, White Noise
- Sarah Waters, The Pickpocket
- Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
- David Herbert Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
- Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
- Jack Kerouac, On the Road
- Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Cheetah
- Dante Alighieri, Inferno
- Alfred Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz
- Saul Bellow, Herzog
- Yukio Mishima, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea
- TS Eliot, The Waste Land
- Frank Norris, McTeague
- Martin Amis, Money
- Colin Wilson, The Outsider
- Frank Edwards, Strange People
- JB Priestley, English Journey
- Nathanael West, The Day Of The Locust
- Charles White, The Life And Times Of Little Richard
- Nik Cohn, Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock
- Greil Marcus, Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music
- A Beano comic from the 1950s
- A Raw comic from the 1980s
- Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music
- John Cage, Silence: Lectures And Writing
- Malcolm Cowley, Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews
- Charlie Gillett, The Sound Of The City: The Rise Of Rock And Roll
- Petr Sadecky, Octobriana And The Russian Underground
- Ann Petry, The Street
- Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys
- Hubert Selby, Jr., Last Exit To Brooklyn
- Howard Zinn, A People's History Of The United States
- Susan Jacoby, The Age Of American Unreason
- Fran Lebowitz, Metropolitan Life
- Tom Stoppard, The Coast Of Utopia
- Hart Crane, The Bridge
- David Kidd, All The Emperor's Horses
- Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers
- John Dos Passos, The 42nd Parallel
- Ed Sanders, Tales Of Beatnik Glory
- Howard Norman, The Bird Artist
- Gerri Hirshey, Nowhere To Run: The Story Of Soul Music
- Otto Friedrich, Before The Deluge
- Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae
- Jessica Mitford, The American Way Of Death
- Jon Savage, Teenage
- Evelyn Waugh, Fairy Bodies
- Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders
- James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
- Viz comics magazine from the early 1980s
- Satirical magazine Private Eye (1960s and 1980s)
- Frank O'Hara, Selected PoemsChristopher Hitchens, The Trial Of Henry Kissinger
- Comte de Lautréamont, Le Chants de Maldordor
- Lawrence Weschler, M.Sc. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Zanoni
- Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual
- Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels
- Alberto Denti di Pirajno, A Grave for a Dolphin
- Rupert Thomson, The Insult
- Ian McEwan, In Between the Sheets
- Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1890-1924Eugenia Ginzburg, Journey Into the Whirlwind
- David Sylvester, Interviews With Francis Bacon
- Keith Waterhouse, Billy Liar
- John Braine, Room At The Top
- Douglass Harding, On Having No Head
- Anatole Broyard, Kafka Was The Rage
- John Rechy, City Of Night
- William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
- Tadanori Yokoo, Tadanori Yokoo
- George Orwell, Inside The Whale And Other Essays
- Christopher Isherwood, M.Sc. Norris Changes Trains
- James A. Hall, Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art
- Richard Cork, David Bomberg
- Wyndham Lewis, Blast
- Arthur C. Danto, Beyond The Brillo Box
- Julian Jaynes, The Origin Of Consciousness And The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Min
- George Steiner, In Bluebeard's Castle
- Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor
- RD Laing, The Divided Self
- Wallace Thurman, Infants Of The Spring
- Christa Wolf, The Quest For Christa T
- Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines
- Muriel Spark, The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie
- Spike Milligan, Puckoon
- Richard Wright, Black Boy
