Bowie’s Bookshelf: The hundred books that changed David Bowie’s life by John O’Connell
A Review
Veteran music journalist John O’Connell has taken the list of 100 books David Bowie says changed his life and offered book lovers and Bowie fans closer look at both subjects.
I read voraciously, so I was a bit surprised to find very few books on Bowie’s list that I have read and quite a number I’d never heard of. For this reason, I appreciated the short synopsis of each book included in the essays. I also liked that O’Connell ends on each essay with pairing suggestions: A Bowie song to listen to while reading the listed book and another book or two to read, if you find you like this one.
O’Connell’s attempts to identify the direct effect of each book on Bowie’s art sometimes offers fascinating insights and other times falls a bit flat. Nonetheless, I came away with deeper understanding of the man whose music gives me so much joy and an even longer TBR list.
So many books; so little time. Four stars for this one.
Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for this advanced readers copy.