In Memoriam: David Bowie's Top 100 Favorite Books
Though one of his songs is titled "I Can't Read", David Bowie was actually quite the voracious reader. In 2013, he posted a list of his top 100 favorite reads on his Facebook page and we're glad he did—Bowie's list of favorites is diverse and eclectic, ranging from poetry to comics to the kind of trippy reads you'd expect Ziggy Stardust to dig. In memory of one of the world's most iconic artists, put on some David Bowie tunes and crack the spine of one of the books that helped shape the legendary musician.
David Bowie's Top 100 Reads:
- Interviews With Francis Bacon by David Sylvester
- Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse
- Room At The Top by John Braine
- On Having No Head by Douglass Harding
- Kafka Was The Rage by Anatole Broyard
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
- City Of Night by John Rechy
- The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
- Iliad by Homer
- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
- Tadanori Yokoo by Tadanori Yokoo
- Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
- Inside The Whale And Other Essays by George Orwell
- Mr. Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
- Halls Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art by James A. Hall
- David Bomberg by Richard Cork
- Blast by Wyndham Lewis
- Passing by Nella Larson
- Beyond The Brillo Box by Arthur C. Danto
- The Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
- In Bluebeard’s Castle by George Steiner
- Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd
- The Divided Self by R. D. Laing
- The Stranger by Albert Camus
- Infants Of The Spring by Wallace Thurman
- The Quest For Christa T by Christa Wolf
- The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
- Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter
- The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
- The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
- Herzog by Saul Bellow
- Puckoon by Spike Milligan
- Black Boy by Richard Wright
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima
- Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler
- The Waste Land by T.S. Elliot
- McTeague by Frank Norris
- Money by Martin Amis
- The Outsider by Colin Wilson
- Strange People by Frank Edwards
- English Journey by J.B. Priestley
- A Confederacy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- The Day Of The Locust by Nathanael West
- 1984 by George Orwell
- The Life And Times Of Little Richard by Charles White
- Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock by Nik Cohn
- Mystery Train by Greil Marcus
- Beano (comic, ’50s)
- Raw (comic, ’80s)
- White Noise by Don DeLillo
- Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The Southern Dream Of Freedom by Peter Guralnick
- Silence: Lectures And Writing by John Cage
- Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews edited by Malcolm Cowley
- The Sound Of The City: The Rise Of Rock And Roll by Charlie Gillete
- Octobriana And The Russian Underground by Peter Sadecky
- The Street by Ann Petry
- Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
- Last Exit To Brooklyn By Hubert Selby, Jr.
- A People’s History Of The United States by Howard Zinn
- The Age Of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby
- Metropolitan Life by Fran Lebowitz
- The Coast Of Utopia by Tom Stoppard
- The Bridge by Hart Crane
- All The Emperor’s Horses by David Kidd
- Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
- Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
- The 42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos
- Tales Of Beatnik Glory by Ed Saunders
- The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
- Nowhere To Run The Story Of Soul Music by Gerri Hirshey
- Before The Deluge by Otto Friedrich
- Sexual Personae: Art And Decadence From Nefertiti To Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia
- The American Way Of Death by Jessica Mitford
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
- Teenage by Jon Savage
- Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
- The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard
- The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- Viz (comic, early ’80s)
- Private Eye (satirical magazine, ’60s – ’80s)
- Selected Poems by Frank O’Hara
- The Trial Of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchens
- Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes
- Maldoror by Comte de Lautréamont
- On The Road by Jack Kerouac
- Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler
- Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
- Transcendental Magic, Its Doctrine and Ritual by Eliphas Lévi
- The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
- The Leopard by Giusseppe Di Lampedusa
- Inferno by Dante Alighieri
- A Grave For A Dolphin by Alberto Denti di Pirajno
- The Insult by Rupert Thomson
- In Between The Sheets by Ian McEwan
- A People’s Tragedy by Orlando Figes
- Journey Into The Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg
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Comments
TX FOR THE MEMORIES !
Submitted by MARIANA GRINBLA... (not verified) on January 11, 2016 - 9:17pm
Add new comment | The New York Public Library
Submitted by Jamel (not verified) on December 17, 2019 - 9:40am
This is shameful. How dare
Submitted by Ken S. (not verified) on January 12, 2016 - 10:40am
erm...
Submitted by Rich Whiteley (not verified) on January 12, 2016 - 2:12pm
Not shameful at all - interesting & helpful information instead
Submitted by Wanda Lea Brayton (not verified) on January 12, 2016 - 8:38pm
Well said.
Submitted by Guest (not verified) on February 16, 2019 - 4:48pm
outraged?
Submitted by erin rushalko (not verified) on January 13, 2016 - 2:51am
How dare. Yes Ken S, how
Submitted by Chris R (not verified) on January 13, 2016 - 5:17am
Funny! How dare they
Submitted by Laura T (not verified) on January 13, 2016 - 10:01am
David Bowie's favorite books
Submitted by nan (not verified) on January 13, 2016 - 6:25pm
Isn't this guy just being
Submitted by Elizabeth (not verified) on January 13, 2016 - 7:45pm
David Bowie's 100 book list
Submitted by Jacqueline Puopolo (not verified) on January 13, 2016 - 7:53pm
Shameful
Submitted by Lincoln (not verified) on January 13, 2016 - 9:29pm
Bowie was a supporter of
Submitted by Oh man look at ... (not verified) on January 15, 2016 - 10:03am
oh for heaven sake.. public
Submitted by Sara Cullity (not verified) on January 17, 2016 - 12:18pm
I believe Bowie was an avid
Submitted by ib (not verified) on January 8, 2018 - 2:23pm
Origins
Submitted by jeff (not verified) on January 12, 2016 - 11:54am
Julian Jaynes book, The
Submitted by Carol Bryant (not verified) on January 13, 2016 - 9:37am
No Cohen?
Submitted by Tina (not verified) on January 12, 2016 - 12:48pm
David Bowie
Submitted by Lance Burton (not verified) on January 12, 2016 - 2:01pm
Girl Loves Me
Submitted by John The Mod (not verified) on January 12, 2016 - 4:36pm
Surprised to see no Cormack
Submitted by Rick Mullin (not verified) on January 14, 2016 - 9:19am
Wonderful Tribute to Bowie
Submitted by Katherine D Harris (not verified) on January 21, 2016 - 4:02pm
another reason to thank Bowie
Submitted by Jane (not verified) on January 28, 2016 - 8:42am
David Bowie's Top 100 Books List
Submitted by Sherri Thorne (not verified) on May 30, 2016 - 8:56pm