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Bowie's Bookshelf
- Author
- John O'Connell
- Narrator
- Simon Vance
- Publisher
- Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish Date
- 28 January 2020
- Run Time
- 6 hours 44 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
In 100 short essays, music journalist John O'Connell studies each book on Bowie's list and contextualizes it in the artist's life and work. How did the power imbued in a single suit of armor in The Iliad impact a man who loved costumes, shifting identity, and the siren song of the alter-ego? How did The Gnostic Gospels inform Bowie's own hazy personal cosmology? How did the poems of T. S. Eliot and Frank O'Hara, the fiction of Vladimir Nabokov and Anthony Burgess, the comics of The Beano and The Viz, and the groundbreaking politics of James Baldwin influence Bowie's lyrics, his sound, his artistic outlook? How did the 100 books on this list influence one of the most influential artists of a generation?
Heartfelt, analytical, and totally original, Bowie's Bookshelf is one part epic reading guide and one part biography of a music legend.
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Details
- Author
- John O'Connell
- Narrator
- Simon Vance
- Duration
- 6 hours 44 minutes
- Release Date
- 28 January 2020
- ISBN
- 9781494548148
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Tantor Media, Inc
- Genre
- Biography: general, Literature: history and criticism, Literature: history and criticism, Biography: arts and entertainment, Composers and songwriters, Musicians, singers, bands and groups
Synopsis
Three years before David Bowie died, he shared a list of 100 books that changed his life. His choices span fiction and nonfiction, literary and irreverent, and include timeless classics alongside eyebrow-raising obscurities.In 100 short essays, music journalist John O'Connell studies each book on Bowie's list and contextualizes it in the artist's life and work. How did the power imbued in a single suit of armor in The Iliad impact a man who loved costumes, shifting identity, and the siren song of the alter-ego? How did The Gnostic Gospels inform Bowie's own hazy personal cosmology? How did the poems of T. S. Eliot and Frank O'Hara, the fiction of Vladimir Nabokov and Anthony Burgess, the comics of The Beano and The Viz, and the groundbreaking politics of James Baldwin influence Bowie's lyrics, his sound, his artistic outlook? How did the 100 books on this list influence one of the most influential artists of a generation?Heartfelt, analytical, and totally original, Bowie's Bookshelf is one part epic reading guide and one part biography of a music legend.
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