David Bowie’s Top 100 Books

Image by Avro, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

“David Bowie Is,” the exten­sive ret­ro­spec­tive exhib­it of the artist and his fab­u­lous cos­tumes, hit Toron­to last Fri­day (see our post from ear­li­er today), and as many peo­ple have report­ed, in addi­tion to those costumes—and pho­tos, instru­ments, set designs, lyric sheets, etc.—the show includes a list of Bowie’s favorite books. Described as a “vora­cious read­er” by cura­tor Geof­frey Marsh, Bowie’s top 100 book list spans decades, from Richard Wright’s raw 1945 mem­oir Black Boy to Susan Jacoby’s 2008 analy­sis of U.S. anti-intel­lec­tu­al­ism in The Age of Amer­i­can Unrea­son.

Bowie’s always had a com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship with the U.S., but his list shows a lot of love to Amer­i­can writ­ers, from the afore­men­tioned to Tru­man Capote, Hubert Sel­by, Jr., Saul Bel­low, Junot Diaz, Jack Ker­ouac and many more. He’s also very fond of fel­low Brits George Orwell, Ian McE­wan, and Julian Barnes and loves Mishi­ma and Bul­gakov.  You can read the full list below or over at Open Book Toron­to, who urges you to “grab one of these titles and set­tle in to read — and just think, some­where, at some point, David Bowie (or, to be more accu­rate, the man behind David Bowie, David Jones) was doing the exact same thing.” If that sort of thing inspires you to pick up a good book, go for it. You could also peruse the list, then puz­zle over the lit­er­ate Bowie’s lyrics to “I Can’t Read.” You can also explore a new relat­ed book–Bowie’s Book­shelf: The Hun­dred Books that Changed David Bowie’s Life.

1. Inter­views With Fran­cis Bacon by David Sylvester
2. Bil­ly Liar by Kei­th Water­house
3. Room At The Top by John Braine
4. On Hav­ing No Head by Dou­glass Hard­ing
5. Kaf­ka Was The Rage by Ana­tole Bro­yard
6. A Clock­work Orange by Antho­ny Burgess
7. City Of Night by John Rechy
8. The Brief Won­drous Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
9. Madame Bovary by Gus­tave Flaubert
10. Ili­ad by Homer
11. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkn­er
12. Tadanori Yokoo by Tadanori Yokoo
13. Berlin Alexan­der­platz by Alfred Döblin
14. Inside The Whale And Oth­er Essays by George Orwell
15. Mr. Nor­ris Changes Trains by Christo­pher Ish­er­wood
16. Halls Dic­tio­nary Of Sub­jects And Sym­bols In Art by James A. Hall
17. David Bomberg by Richard Cork
18. Blast by Wyn­d­ham Lewis
19. Pass­ing by Nel­la Lar­son
20. Beyond The Bril­lo Box by Arthur C. Dan­to
21. The Ori­gin Of Con­scious­ness In The Break­down Of The Bicam­er­al Mind by Julian Jaynes
22. In Bluebeard’s Cas­tle by George Stein­er
23. Hawksmoor by Peter Ack­royd
24. The Divid­ed Self by R. D. Laing
25. The Stranger by Albert Camus
26. Infants Of The Spring by Wal­lace Thur­man
27. The Quest For Christa T by Christa Wolf
28. The Song­lines by Bruce Chatwin
29. Nights At The Cir­cus by Angela Carter
30. The Mas­ter And Mar­gari­ta by Mikhail Bul­gakov
31. The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
32. Loli­ta by Vladimir Nabokov
33. Her­zog by Saul Bel­low
34. Puck­oon by Spike Mil­li­gan
35. Black Boy by Richard Wright
36. The Great Gats­by by F. Scott Fitzger­ald
37. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishi­ma
38. Dark­ness At Noon by Arthur Koestler
39. The Waste Land by T.S. Elliot
40. McTeague by Frank Nor­ris
41. Mon­ey by Mar­tin Amis
42. The Out­sider by Col­in Wil­son
43. Strange Peo­ple by Frank Edwards
44. Eng­lish Jour­ney by J.B. Priest­ley
45. A Con­fed­er­a­cy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
46. The Day Of The Locust by Nathanael West
47. 1984 by George Orwell
48. The Life And Times Of Lit­tle Richard by Charles White
49. Awop­bopaloobop Alop­bam­boom: The Gold­en Age of Rock by Nik Cohn
50. Mys­tery Train by Greil Mar­cus
51. Beano (com­ic, ’50s)
52. Raw (com­ic, ’80s)
53. White Noise by Don DeLil­lo
54. Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The South­ern Dream Of Free­dom by Peter Gural­nick
55. Silence: Lec­tures And Writ­ing by John Cage
56. Writ­ers At Work: The Paris Review Inter­views edit­ed by Mal­colm Cow­ley
57. The Sound Of The City: The Rise Of Rock And Roll by Char­lie Gillette
58. Octo­bri­ana And The Russ­ian Under­ground by Peter Sadecky
59. The Street by Ann Petry
60. Won­der Boys by Michael Chabon
61. Last Exit To Brook­lyn By Hubert Sel­by, Jr.
62. A People’s His­to­ry Of The Unit­ed States by Howard Zinn
63. The Age Of Amer­i­can Unrea­son by Susan Jaco­by
64. Met­ro­pol­i­tan Life by Fran Lebowitz
65. The Coast Of Utopia by Tom Stop­pard
66. The Bridge by Hart Crane
67. All The Emperor’s Hors­es by David Kidd
68. Fin­ger­smith by Sarah Waters
69. Earth­ly Pow­ers by Antho­ny Burgess
70. The 42nd Par­al­lel by John Dos Pas­sos
71. Tales Of Beat­nik Glo­ry by Ed Saun­ders
72. The Bird Artist by Howard Nor­man
73. Nowhere To Run The Sto­ry Of Soul Music by Ger­ri Hir­shey
74. Before The Del­uge by Otto Friedrich
75. Sex­u­al Per­son­ae: Art And Deca­dence From Nefer­ti­ti To Emi­ly Dick­in­son by Camille Paglia
76. The Amer­i­can Way Of Death by Jes­si­ca Mit­ford
77. In Cold Blood by Tru­man Capote
78. Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
79. Teenage by Jon Sav­age
80. Vile Bod­ies by Eve­lyn Waugh
81. The Hid­den Per­suaders by Vance Packard
82. The Fire Next Time by James Bald­win
83. Viz (com­ic, ear­ly ’80s)
84. Pri­vate Eye (satir­i­cal mag­a­zine, ’60s – ’80s)
85. Select­ed Poems by Frank O’Hara
86. The Tri­al Of Hen­ry Kissinger by Christo­pher Hitchens
87. Flaubert’s Par­rot by Julian Barnes
88. Mal­doror by Comte de Lautréa­mont
89. On The Road by Jack Ker­ouac
90. Mr. Wilson’s Cab­i­net of Won­der by Lawrence Weschler
91. Zanoni by Edward Bul­w­er-Lyt­ton
92. Tran­scen­den­tal Mag­ic, Its Doc­trine and Rit­u­al by Eliphas Lévi
93. The Gnos­tic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
94. The Leop­ard by Giuseppe Di Lampe­dusa
95. Infer­no by Dante Alighieri
96. A Grave For A Dol­phin by Alber­to Den­ti di Pira­jno
97. The Insult by Rupert Thom­son
98. In Between The Sheets by Ian McE­wan
99. A People’s Tragedy by Orlan­do Figes
100. Jour­ney Into The Whirl­wind by Euge­nia Ginzburg

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bri­an Eno Lists 20 Books for Rebuild­ing Civ­i­liza­tion & 59 Books For Build­ing Your Intel­lec­tu­al World

Bowie’s Book­shelf: A New Essay Col­lec­tion on The 100 Books That Changed David Bowie’s Life

David Bowie Releas­es Vin­tage Videos of His Great­est Hits from the 1970s and 1980s

David Bowie Recalls the Strange Expe­ri­ence of Invent­ing the Char­ac­ter Zig­gy Star­dust (1977)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness