Larry of the Lawn Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 Thought this was kind of a cool look into Bowie's library: I've read an entire 3 of them. David Bowie's Top 100 Must Read Books:The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby, 2008The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz, 2007The Coast of Utopia (trilogy), Tom Stoppard, 2007Teenage: The Creation of Youth 1875-1945, Jon Savage, 2007Fingersmith, Sarah Waters, 2002The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens, 2001Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, Lawrence Weschler, 1997A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1890-1924, Orlando Figes, 1997The Insult, Rupert Thomson, 1996Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon, 1995The Bird Artist, Howard Norman, 1994Kafka Was The Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir, Anatole Broyard, 1993Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective, Arthur C. Danto, 1992Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, Camille Paglia, 1990David Bomberg, Richard Cork, 1988Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom, Peter Guralnick, 1986The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin, 1986Hawksmoor, Peter Ackroyd, 1985Nowhere To Run: The Story of Soul Music, Gerri Hirshey, 1984Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter, 1984Money, Martin Amis, 1984White Noise, Don DeLillo, 1984Flaubert’s Parrot, Julian Barnes, 1984The Life and Times of Little Richard, Charles White, 1984A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn, 1980A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, 1980Interviews with Francis Bacon, David Sylvester, 1980Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler, 1980Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess, 1980Raw (a ‘graphix magazine’) 1980-91Viz (magazine) 1979 –The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, 1979Metropolitan Life, Fran Lebowitz, 1978In Between the Sheets, Ian McEwan, 1978Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, ed. Malcolm Cowley, 1977The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes, 1976Tales of Beatnik Glory, Ed Saunders, 1975Mystery Train, Greil Marcus, 1975Selected Poems, Frank O’Hara, 1974Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s, Otto Friedrich, 1972In Bluebeard’s Castle: Some Notes Towards the Re-definition of Culture, George Steiner, 1971Octobriana and the Russian Underground, Peter Sadecky, 1971The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll, Charlie Gillete, 1970The Quest For Christa T, Christa Wolf, 1968Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock, Nik Cohn, 1968The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov, 1967Journey into the Whirlwind, Eugenia Ginzburg, 1967Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jr., 1966In Cold Blood, Truman Capote, 1965City of Night, John Rechy, 1965Herzog, Saul Bellow, 1964Puckoon, Spike Milligan, 1963The American Way of Death, Jessica Mitford, 1963The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, Yukio Mishima, 1963The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin, 1963A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, 1962Inside the Whale and Other Essays, George Orwell, 1962The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark, 1961Private Eye (magazine) 1961 –On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious, Douglas Harding, 1961Silence: Lectures and Writing, John Cage, 1961Strange People, Frank Edwards, 1961The Divided Self, R. D. Laing, 1960All The Emperor’s Horses, David Kidd, 1960Billy Liar, Keith Waterhouse, 1959The Leopard, Giuseppe Di Lampedusa, 1958On The Road, Jack Kerouac, 1957The Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard, 1957Room at the Top, John Braine, 1957A Grave for a Dolphin, Alberto Denti di Pirajno, 1956The Outsider, Colin Wilson, 1956Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, 1949The Street, Ann Petry, 1946Black Boy, Richard Wright, 1945 edit: I don't understand about quoting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 At least one user on here will be devastated that the list contains no Dostoevsky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 NB: that it doesn't say these are his favorite readin' books, which category may well include dostoevsky. these might in fact be bowie's favorite table-stabilizing or window-propping books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecryptile Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 I've read an entire 3 of them.You've got me beat. Out of that list, I've only read A Clockwork Orange. Although Dawkins summarizes The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind in The God Delusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deleted01 Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 Think I've read two - Lolita and 1984. Pretty disappointed that he has Ian McEwan on there, though. :ack: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
End of Disc One Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 Best songwriter ever...though I don't know if I've read a single one of these books Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkynJay Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 Read three, and gave up on a forth within a few pages. Someone else can read On The Road, I don't want to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faint Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 I've read eight . . . and I'm not really inclined to read any of the other ninety-two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowborn Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 I've read five, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea is a book I love. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry. Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 I've read 13, own another, and have read other works by another dozen or so of the writers mentioned. Nice, eclectic taste he has. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted October 3, 2013 Author Share Posted October 3, 2013 NB: that it doesn't say these are his favorite readin' books, which category may well include dostoevsky. these might in fact be bowie's favorite table-stabilizing or window-propping books. Bowie is known as a passionate collector of tables with shim-craving legs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stark Revenge Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 1984 and................that's it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toshio.Keepiru Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 At least one user on here will be devastated that the list contains no Dostoevsky. Personally I do like "Notes from Underground" However, I was first struck by the non-fiction books that were included in the list and have discovered a couple of books that I think I should read. At least the list didn't include Ayn Rand. :smoking: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjax451 Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 This is a fascinating list. Very eclectic. I've read about 20 of them and own a couple of the others, having read bits and pieces. I might not love all of the books on this list that I've read, but you could do a whole lot worse than this list (say...the people's choice Modern Library Top 100, which is filled with Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, etc.)(Note: I'm not bagging on Potter...I just don't think any Potter book is one of the greatest of all time). Just a fascinating list to look at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Fitzpatrick Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 Jesus, I feel ashamed that I've only ever heard of a few of them and even worse, only read two of them. A Clockwork Orange and Lolita. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clueless Northman Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 There are only 75 books in the list. Since it stops in 1945, I assume someone forgot to add the last page of the list. (though any list of top-100 books with 3/4 of them being post-WWII seems a bit weird if not fishy) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myshkin Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 At least one user on here will be devastated that the list contains no Dostoevsky. Bowie simply assumes that you've already read Dostoevsky, and so leaves him off the list. If you haven't read Dostoevsky Bowie doesn't like you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dietl Posted October 5, 2013 Share Posted October 5, 2013 Here are the missing 25: The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker, 1944The Outsider, Albert Camus, 1942The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West, 1939The Beano, (comic) 1938 –The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell, 1937Mr. Norris Changes Trains, Christopher Isherwood, 1935English Journey, J.B. Priestley, 1934Infants of the Spring, Wallace Thurman, 1932The Bridge, Hart Crane, 1930Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh, 1930As I lay Dying, William Faulkner, 1930The 42nd Parallel, John Dos Passos, 1930Berlin Alexanderplatz, Alfred Döblin, 1929Passing, Nella Larsen, 1929Lady Chatterley’s Lover, D.H. Lawrence, 1928The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot, 1922BLAST, ed. Wyndham Lewis, 1914-15McTeague, Frank Norris, 1899Transcendental Magic, Its Doctrine and Ritual, Eliphas Lévi, 1896Les Chants de Maldoror, Lautréamont, 1869Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert, 1856Zanoni, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1842Inferno, from the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri, about 1308-1321The Iliad, Homer, about 800 BC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted October 5, 2013 Share Posted October 5, 2013 I have read seven that I actually remember reading. I have tried bits and pieces of about ten more. Actually, I thought he would have had a more interesting list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaßvogel Posted October 9, 2013 Share Posted October 9, 2013 Rest of the list bumps me up to 11. There's sure a lot of dreck on the full list, but then again, any list that long is going to be lousy to someone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.