
David Bowie's list of books he loved in his life - wowsig
http://shelfjoy.com/shelfjoy/david-bowies-list-of-extraordinary-books-he-loved-in-his-life
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vonnik
I highly doubt that Tony Robbins' "Money" was on David Bowie's list of his 100
favorite books. I had to read "Money", and it was crap. And David Bowie was a
man of discriminating taste. Money was published in late 2014 and Bowie died
two years later. He probably already knew he had cancer when Money came out,
and he had made his wad decades before. Doesn't make sense, and it makes me
doubt the rest of the list, which is surprisingly high in contemporary US
fiction for someone with Bowie's international exposure.

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jamesgagan
Pretty sure it is supposed to be Money by Martin Amis, not Tony Robbins. looks
like a few of the titles/descriptions are mixed up on this list.

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vonnik
I'll bet you're right, now that you mention it.

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jamesgagan
I think the lesson here is that you can't just have a bot scrape together a
mishmash of book titles and descriptions without knowing anything about books.
Bowie was a reader and if this list is to be of interest to other readers, it
needs to be correct and hand-curated by someone who knows literature.

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moomin
David Bowie, talking about being a young man in London said that he always
used to have a Penguin book in one of his jacket pockets, because the top of
it would peek out and make him look more interesting. He said he didn't regret
it, because every so often he'd find himself bored and at a loose end and
actually read one of them, and read many great books he wouldn't have read if
he hadn't been posing.

Entertainingly enough, I learned this at the V&A, at the David Bowie Is
exhibition.

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jackyinger
Of all these, I'd recommend The Master and Margherita. It is mischievous with
deep allegory.

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CalChris
I loved and recommended _Master and Margherita_. Well, I thought I
_understood_ it. Then I had a Russian girlfriend and found out I read it
completely wrong. To them it's like _Animal Farm_ rather than say _Babe_. It's
still fun for us but I think it's probably very hard for a Westerner to get
right.

I haven't read _Clockwork Orange_ in a long time and I should. I didn't much
like anything else he wrote but CO was awesome fun for a 20-something.

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SirensOfTitan
I would highly recommend Julian Jaynes's "The Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" from this list. It largely changed how I
think about consciousness--even if some of his grander ideas are difficult to
prove.

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justin66
What does this list of books (and its "curators") have to do with David Bowie?

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goblin89
This seems to be a showcase of ShelfJoy’s functionality on the example of
“Bowie’s 100 books” list, which apparently was supplied by his archivist for
an exhibition _David Bowie Is_ from a few years ago.

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wowsig
Hey, creator of ShelfJoy here. You explained it right :)

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jamesgagan
Some of your titles and descriptions are mismatched. For example, the
description of the Tony Robbins book is actually the description for Money by
Martin Amis. Much more likely Bowie would be reading Amis than Tony Robbins!
The CJ Box title/description is also wrong.

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fluxic
Can't recommend David Sylvester's interviews with Francis Bacon enough.
Brilliant book, even if you're not a fan of the painter.

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Spooky23
Madame Bovary?

That prompted flashbacks to senior year of high school. I _hated_ reading that
book!

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e40
Yeah, me, too. I wonder what it would be like to read now, but I had a really,
really tough time getting through that book. It was horrible.

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howfun
The Master and Margarita. I love this book. Movie is good too.

