David Bowie's Top 100 Favorite Books

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About this list

David Bowie, 97 Books

David Bowie was not only one of the most famous musicians of the 20th Century he was also one of the most well read, at times travelling with some 1400 books on him. Here's a collection of his favorites.
Note this list is only 97 books. The following magazines I could not find anywhere as book collections, therefore not added:
Raw (comic, ’80s)
Viz (comic, early ’80s)
Private Eye (satirical magazine, ’60s – ’80s)

This list was originally published in 2016 and was added to this site over 1 year ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
13753 Interviews With Francis Bacon David Sylvester 1975 British English
1216 Billy Liar Keith Waterhouse 1959 British English
2312 Room At The Top John Braine 1957 British English
13362 On Having No Head Douglas Harding 1961 British English
5707 Kafka Was The Rage Anatole Broyard 1993 American English
153 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
3316 City Of Night John Rechy 1963 American English
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
14650 Tadanori Yokoo Daido Moriyama 2006 Japanese Japanese
201 Berlin Alexanderplatz Alfred Döblin 1929 German German
11576 Inside The Whale And Other Essays George Orwell 1940 British English
1183 Mr Norris Changes Trains Christopher Isherwood 1935 British English
13743 Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art James Hall 1974 British English
14061 David Bomberg Richard Cork 1987 British English
13362 Blast I Wyndham Lewis 1914 British English
437 Passing Nella Larsen 1929 American English
14180 Beyond The Brillo Box Arthur C. Danto 1992 American English
6715 The Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind Julian Jaynes 1976 American English
11839 In Bluebeard's Castle George Steiner 1971 British English
1551 Hawksmoor Peter Ackroyd 1985 British English
2293 The Divided Self R. D. Laing 1960 British English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
13362 Infants Of The Spring Wallace Thurman 1932 American English
2204 The Quest for Christa T. Christa Wolf 1968 German German
2667 The Songlines Bruce Chatwin 1987 British English
628 Nights At The Circus Angela Carter 1984 British English
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
169 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
298 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
2439 Puckoon Spike Milligan 1963 Irish English
640 Black Boy Richard Wright 1945 American English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
4407 The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea Yukio Mishima 1963 Japanese Japanese
212 Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler 1940 British German
111 The Waste Land T. S. Eliot 1922 British English
853 Mc Teague Frank Norris 1899 American English
750 Money Martin Amis 1984 British English
1403 The Outsider Colin Wilson 1956 British English
13362 Strange People Frank Edwards 1961 American English
13362 English Journey J. B. Priestley 1934 British English
203 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
347 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West 1939 American English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
14011 The Life And Times Of Little Richard Charles White 1984 British English
9984 Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom Nik Cohn 1969 British English
11010 Mystery Train Greil Marcus 1975 American English
13362 The Beano The Editor 1938 British English
364 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
14056 Sweet Soul Music Peter Guralnick 1986 American English
13362 Silence John Cage 1961 American English
13362 Writers At Work Malcolm Cowley 1958 American English
13575 The Sound Of The City Charlie Gillett 1970 British English
13586 Octobriana And The Russian Underground Peter Sadecky 1971 Unknown English
1119 The Street Ann Petry 1946 American English
10012 Wonder Boys Michael Chabon 1995 American English
901 Last Exit to Brooklyn Hubert Selby 1964 American English
2586 A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn 1980 American English
14698 The Age Of American Unreason Susan Jacoby 2008 American English
13806 Metropolitan Life Fran Lebowitz 1978 American English
14520 The Coast Of Utopia Tom Stoppard 2002 British English
8665 The Bridge Hart Crane 1930 American English
13362 All The Emperor’s Horses David Kidd 1960 American English
1010 Fingersmith Sarah Waters 2002 British English
1374 Earthly Powers Anthony Burgess 1980 British English
3260 The 42nd Parallel John Dos Passos 1930 American English
13753 Tales Of Beatnik Glory Ed Saunders 1975 American English
11894 The Bird Artist Howard Norman 1994 Canadian English
14499 Nowhere To Run Gerri Hirshey 2001 American English
13597 Before The Deluge Otto Friedrich 1972 American English
14113 Sexual Personae Camille Paglia 1990 American English
2519 The American Way of Death Jessica Mitford 1963 American English
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
14680 Teenage Jon Savage 2007 British English
1427 Vile Bodies Evelyn Waugh 1930 British English
1576 The Hidden Persuaders Vance Packard 1957 American English
749 The Fire Next Time James Baldwin 1963 American English
7565 Selected Poems Frank O'Hara 1974 American English
14499 The Trial Of Henry Kissinger Christopher Hitchens 2001 British English
988 Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes 1984 British English
463 The Songs of Maldoror Comte de Lautréamont 1868 French French
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
3223 Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder Lawrence Weschler 1995 American English
13362 Zanoni Edward Bulwer-Lytton 1842 British English
13362 Transcendental Magic Eliphas Levi 1854 French French
2817 The Gnostic Gospels Elaine Pagels 1979 American English
56 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 Italian Italian
5481 The Inferno Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
13362 A Grave For A Dolphin Alberto Denti di Pirajno 1956 Italian Italian
5750 The Insult Rupert Thomson 1996 British English
13806 In Between The Sheets Ian McEwan 1978 British English
13584 A People's Tragedy Orlando Figes 1996 British English
7110 Journey Into The Whirlwind Eugenia Ginzburg 1967 Russian Russian