David Bowie Top 100 books

[drofgnal]

My wife knowing I was a big Bowie music fan showed me an instagram post about Bowie being a voracious reader. It had a link to his top 100 books from the NY public library. I've read a handful of these and may explore a few more on the list. It's an interesting collection of books.


https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/01/11...-top-100-books

[Number9]

There's also a book written on the subject!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07QH...8355624&sr=8-1

And here:

https://www.kobo.com/se/sv/ebook/bow...9thKHKg&cPos=1

[Quoth]

How does the top 100 from a library work?
In fact it's a copy of Bowie's own list posted by Bowie himself on Facebook, so it's actually nothing to do with the NYPL. Using Facebook is poor judgement. The entirely of Zukerberg's sites are exploitive cess pits.

It might be brilliant or not, but generally the opinions of celebrities are worthless. See Stephen Fry's comments.
What a celebrity is good at, or famous but not good at*, is mostly irrelevant to some other field.

[* David Bowie seems to have deserved pop fame more than most and seems to have been decent to work with]

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Quoth

How does the top 100 from a library work?
In fact it's a copy of Bowie's own list posted by Bowie himself on Facebook, so it's actually nothing to do with the NYPL. Using Facebook is poor judgement.

A top 100 from a library lists the books from the posting/article and will often link directly to the book within the library so that patrons can request it. In this case, it was David Bowie. It's not NYPL's list, it's David Bowie's list with links to those books at the NYPL. People asked, so he took the time to post. No different from other reading lists from other well known persons. Sometimes, a book that is somewhat obscure catches your eye from these lists, so a book you might never have read gets read and maybe gets added to your favorites.

[DiapDealer]

I typically find the opinions of celebrities about everyday stuff to be just about as worth(full|less) as any anybody else's. *Shrug*

[issybird]

Lists are fun. I'll always look at a list. The best lists are a combination of the eclectic and the expected and that's just what we've got here. I rather assume it's not ranked. I see Kafka was the Rage in the fifth spot; I liked that a lot but it's not fifth on my all-time list. Not even close.

And to elaborate on lists being fun, it could be a lot of fun if people were to post their all-time best lists here. Not a top hundred, ack!, but perhaps a top ten or even twenty. Would anyone dare? In any case, it would be entertaining and illuminating to work up one's own list.

[drofgnal]

I'll start with my top 3:

1- A Gentleman in Moscow by Toles
2- War and Peace by Tolstoy
3- The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien

I'll add after I've thought about it. I won't go beyond 10.

[issybird]

I've given it some thought and ten is harder than a hundred. It takes a lot of distillation; also, I think you lose that eclectic aspect that's appealing in longer lists. There's a lot less chance of stumbling across a previously unknown gem in someone else's list; the fewer the books, the more predictable they become.

A lot of my all-time favorites are nonfiction, too; for starters, I think I'd need two lists!

[Quoth]

Many of my favourites change with time and many are for different reasons. Also I'd find it difficult to explain why I like some, which by any critical milestone are poor.

There are authors were I like nearly all their work. Some series I like all of. Some authors and series are patchy.

Then there are series or authors I started by liking and now hate.

Also a list I'd recommend would vary with person and might not be the same thing as books I like. Some people can't stand loads of genres. I only dislike a couple of genres.