David Bowie’s son Duncan Jones has decided to go on a “literary journey” of the top 100 books that his father loved best, and now he wants to take fans of the Ziggy Stardust star along for the ride.
On December 26, the Warcraft director tweeted his invitation for all fans to join him in exploring his father’s rich collection of books that he felt were important enough to recommend to his millions of fans.
“Alright gang! Anyone who wants to join along, we are reading Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor , as an amuse cerveau before we get into the heavy stuff. You have until Feb 1.”
The first book that the David Bowie book club will read is Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd. Duncan revealed that his father was a voracious reader, and Hawksmoor was one of his favorites.
“My dad was a beast of a reader. One of his true loves was Peter Ackroyd’s sojourns into the history of Britain & its cities. I’ve been feeling a building sense of duty to go on the same literary marathon in tribute to dad. Time allowing…”
Hawksmoor , the 1985 Whitbread Award-winning book, is considered a prime example of postmodernist fiction. The 288-page detective novel is filled with British history, mystery, and occultism, as well as references to poets William Blake and Milton.
According to NME , David Bowie released his 25th and last album Blackstar on January 8, 2016, the day he turned 69. He died two days later.
According to Rolling Stone , back in 2013, David Bowie published his “personal list of ‘100 Top Books’” on his website. The cornucopia of titles range from such classics like The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald to the Viz comic. It should be no surprise that George Orwell’s 1984 is included in this list.
Should the David Bowie book club read one book a month, the quest will take just over eight years, but perhaps the journey will uncover more insights into the brilliant mind of the Thin White Duke.
David Bowie’s Top 100 Books, In Alphabetical Order
- Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd
- Inferno by Dante Alighieri
- Money by Martin Amis
- The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes
- Herzog by Saul Bellow
- Room At The Top by John Braine
- Kafka Was The Rage by Anatole Broyard
- The Master And Margarit a by Mikhail Bulgakov
- Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
- Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
- Silence: Lectures And Writing by John Cage
- The Stranger by Albert Camus
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter
- Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
- The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
- Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock by Nik Cohn
- David Bomberg by Richard Cork
- Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews edited by Malcolm Cowley
- The Bridge by Hart Crane
- Beyond The Brillo Box by Arthur C. Danto
- White Noise by Don DeLillo
- A Grave For A Dolphin by Alberto Denti di Pirajno
- The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
- The 42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos
- Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
- Strange People by Frank Edwards
- The Waste Land by T.S. Elliot
- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
- A People’s Tragedy by Orlando Figes
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
- Before The Deluge by Otto Friedrich
- The Sound Of The City: The Rise Of Rock And Roll by Charlie Gillete
- Journey Into The Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg
- Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The Southern Dream Of Freedom by Peter Guralnick
- Halls Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art by James A. Hall
- On Having No Head by Douglass Harding
- Nowhere To Run The Story Of Soul Music by Gerri Hirshey
- The Trial Of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchens
- Iliad by Homer
- Mr. Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
- The Age Of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby
- The Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
- On The Road by Jack Kerouac
- All The Emperor’s Horses by David Kidd
- Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler
- The Divided Self by R. D. Laing
- The Leopard by Giusseppe Di Lampedusa
- Passing by Nella Larson
- Maldodor by Comte de Lautréamont
- Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
- Metropolitan Life by Fran Lebowitz
- Transcendental Magic, Its Doctine And Ritual by Eliphas Lévi
- Blast by Wyndham Lewis
- Mystery Train by Greil Marcus
- In Between The Sheets by Ian McEwan
- Puckoon by Spike Milligan
- The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima
- The American Way Of Death by Jessica Mitford
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
- The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
- McTeague by Frank Norris
- Selected Poems by Frank O’Hara
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Inside The Whale And Other Essays by George Orwell
- The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard
- The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
- Sexual Personae: Art And Decadence From Nefertiti To Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia
- The Street by Ann Petry
- English Journey by J.B. Priestley
- City Of Night by John Rechy
- Octobriana And The Russian Underground by Peter Sadecky
- Tales Of Beatnik Glory by Ed Saunders
- Teenage by Jon Savage
- Last Exit To Brooklyn By Hubert Selby, Jr.
- The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
- In Bluebeard’s Castle by George Steiner
- The Coast Of Utopia by Tom Stoppard
- Interviews With Francis Bacon by David Sylvester
- The Insult by Rupert Thomson
- Infants Of The Spring by Wallace Thurman
- A Confederacy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse
- Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
- Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
- Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonders by Lawrence Weschler
- The Day Of The Locust by Nathanael West
- The Life And Times Of Little Richard by Charles White
- The Outsider by Colin Wilson
- The Quest For Christa T by Christa Wolf
- Black Boy by Richard Wright
- Tadanori Yokoo by Tadanori Yokoo
- A People’s History Of The United States by Howard Zinn
- Beano (comic, ’50s)
- Private Eye (satirical magazine, ’60s – ’80s)
- Raw (comic, ’80s)
- Viz (comic, early ’80s)