What David Bowie Read (Or: 100 Ways to Make Yourself More Creative)

And if not more creative, at least a hell of a lot more interesting...

This week is both David Bowie’s birthday (Jan. 8th) and the seventh anniversary of his death (Jan. 10th, 2016). The rock star was a massive influence on how I think about art and, specifically, create today - so much so that a Ziggy Stardust-like character plays a major role in my debut novel PSALMS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD (2022). You can read more about his influence on me and the lessons all artists should take from his career here (“Be Like Bowie…or Die Trying”).

What isn’t as widely discussed as Bowie’s musical appetites are his literary ones. The man was a voracious reader with extraordinary taste. In this 5AM StoryTalk bonus resource, I share with you a list of his 100 must-read books. Bear in mind that Bowie didn’t just read these books. His music was quite often shaped by his experience of them, one example being his album DIAMOND DOGS, which is entirely written in William S. Burroughs’ cut-up method.

Bowie in 1995, reading Number 1 on this list

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. Eliot

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 Gillet

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 Sanders

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 Giusseppe 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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